THE DICKENS CIRCLE 




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Chakles Dickens 

(1836) 
From a Pencil Sketch by George Cruikshanlc 
Frontispiece 



THE *1 
DICKENS CIRCLE 

A NARRATIVE OF THE 
NOVELIST'S FRIENDSHIPS 



BY 

J. W. T. LEY 



WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

68 1 Fifth Avenue 



Published 1919 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



"PR ^5*3 3 



Gift 
^ublieher 

OCT 21 m 



UU 



8 1919 \ 



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Printed in the United States of America 



THIS FIRST 

AMERICAN EDITION 

IS DEDICATED 

TO 

TO WHOSE UNSELFISHNESS 
I OWE SO MUCH 



PREFACE 



From the time when, as a very raw youth, I first came to 
know anything about Charles Dickens, I have been attracted 
by the magnetic personality of the man himself even more 
than by the men and women he created. The outstanding 
impression that I gained from my first reading of Forster's 
Life of Charles Dickens was of this magnetism of his person- 
ality which attracted to him so many of the most brilliant 
men and women of the time, and won for him their whole- 
hearted friendship. That impression was deepened as I read 
more widely. Youth, of course, discovers wonders contin- 
ually which it is amazed to find are already well known to its 
parents, but the amazement in my case arose out of the fact 
that this very striking phase of Dickens's character — this 
extraordinary capacity of his for friendship — had not ap- 
parently been discovered. At any rate, it had never been 
adequately dealt with. I was struck by the fact that this 
man Dickens, comparatively unlettered as he was, who had 
had no material advantages in life, but, on the contrary, 
many disadvantages, should not merely have come to know 
so many of his peers — that was inevitable — but should have 
so won their affection ; should have been so loved by old men 
like Landor and Leigh Hunt, and Jeffrey, by men of his own 
age like Forster, and Maclise, and Talfourd, and by men of 
a younger generation like Percy Fitzgerald, James Payn and 
Charles Kent; should have been accepted by them all as the 
sun of their firmament. 

If it be true that the proper study for mankind is Man, 
it is equally true that men most reveal themselves in their 
relations with men. In my desire to gain a true notion as to 
what manner of man Dickens really was, I found Forster's 
book disappointing. I have no quarrel with him on that 



viii PREFACE 

ground; he could not be expected to give more than a com- 
prehensive portrait of his subject, with the lights and shades 
that he himself saw. But his book did little more than whet 
my appetite, as it were. Paragraphic references were made 
to famous men of brilliant and fascinating parts, little more 
than hints were given of the novelist's relations with some of 
those men. And so I sought elsewhere. I began to read 
widely in Victorian biography and autobiography, and thus 
I gained a knowledge, not only of Dickens, but of many other 
noble and worthy men of the period, which I could not have 
gained otherwise, and which has been helpful and inspiring 
to me. 

The result of my labours — unhappy word! — is here. It 
has many faults, I have no doubt. I only claim that it has 
been done conscientiously by one who loves his subject. My 
difficulty has been to decide what to omit. I have been almost 
overwhelmed with material, but I tried all along to avoid any- 
thing in the nature of a Gradgrindish compilation. I am 
vain enough to hope that my fellow Dickensians will find this 
book a useful auxiliary to Forster. I am modest enough to 
have aimed at nothing higher. 

I suppose it would be impossible for any man to write a 
book on Dickens to-day without having to acknowledge in- 
debtedness to Mr. B. W. Matz. That gentleman has been 
one of my most valued personal friends for a good many 
years now. I succeeded him as Hon. General Secretary of 
the Dickens Fellowship, and sat with him on the Council 
of that remarkable organisation for five years ; I was a mem- 
ber, with him, of the little Committee which, with fear and 
trembling, launched The Dickensicm, that bright little maga- 
zine which he has so ably edited for fourteen years; I have 
been associated with him in innumerable Dickensian ventures ; 
and time and time again I have been indebted to him for 
his advice and help — both ever ready and ever valuable — as 
well as for many personal kindnesses of a more intimate 
character. And now I want to say that but for him I could 
never have written this book. I have had to turn to him 
again and again. His unique knowledge was always at my 
disposal, so were the contents of his excellent library, and 
when he did not himself possess a book that I needed he 
begged or borrowed it for me. But for his persistent encour- 



PREFACE ix 

agement I doubt if I should ever have seriously tackled the 
work at all ; but for his consistent help I know I could never 
have completed it. 

There are others who have rendered help which I grate- 
fully acknowledge. Mr. William Miller, another old Dicken- 
sian friend, has answered many inquiries out of his marvellous 
store of knowledge, and loaned me books ; Mrs. Perugini, too, 
has most kindly answered inquiries; the Marquis of Crewe 
generously loaned to me the originals of all Dickens's letters 
to his father and mother; Lord Tennyson gave me some 
valuable information about his father's friendship with 
Dickens, and authorised me to quote from his Memoir of his 
father; Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., gave me a personal inter- 
view. 

Of the books I have consulted I could not possibly give a 
complete list. Their name is Legion. But where I have 
quoted I have made acknowledgment in the text or in a 
footnote. 

J. W. T. Ley. 

Newport, Mon., 
June 1918. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAQB 

I. INTRODUCTORY 1 

II. FRIENDS OF BOYHOOD AND YOUTH ... 6 

III. WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH . . . . 11 

IV. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 20 

V. WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY .... 27 

VI. ROBERT BROWNING 39 

VII. "PHIZ" 42 

VIII. THOMAS NOON TALFOURD 48 

IX. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 54 

x. "dear old mac" 65 

XI. GEORGE CATTERMOLE 75 

XII. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY ... 80 

XIII. DOUGLAS JERROLD 97 

XIV. THE LANDSEERS . . . . . . .107 

XV. "NOBLE OLD stanny" 110 

XVI. FRANCIS JEFFREY 118 

XVII. SIR DAVID WILKIE 130 

XVIII. SOME SCOTCH FRIENDS 132 

XIX. A DISTINGUISHED GROUP 134 

XX. WILLIAM JERDAN 140 

XXI. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART 144 

XXII. SAMUEL ROGERS 147 

XXIII. THOMAS HOOD 151 

XXIV. LEIGH HUNT 155 

XXV. CAPTAIN MARRYAT 161 

XXVI. CHARLES KNIGHT 165 

xi 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

xxvu. "barry Cornwall" and his daughter . 169 

XXVIII. FRANK STONE AND HIS SON . . . .172 

XXIX. SOME LIMBS OF THE LAW 180 

XXX. GORE HOUSE FRIENDS 183 

XXXI. THE HON. MRS. NORTON 189 

XXXII. MISS COUTTS 192 

XXXIII. THE GOOD EARL 195 

XXXIV. LORD JOHN RUSSELL 198 

XXXV. THOMAS CARLYLE 205 

XXXVI. BULWER LYTTON AND LAMAN BLANCHARD . 210 

XXXVII. TENNYSON 219 

XXXVIII. A GROUP OF PUBLISHERS 221 

XXXIX. AMERICAN FRIENDS — WASHINGTON IRVING . 225 

XL. LONGFELLOW . . . 230 

XLI. " PROFESSOR FELTON . . 233 

XLII. " HOLMES, LOWELL, AND 

OTHERS .... 236 

xliii. " mr. & mrs. james t. fields 238 

xliv. richard monckton milnes .... 242 

xlv. w. j. fox and rev. william harness . . 248 

xlvi. mr. and mrs. watson 252 

xlvii. william haldimand, mons de cerjat, and the 

brookfields , 257 

xlviii. mary boyle and sir william boxall . . 262 

xlix. amateur theatricals — lord mulgrave . 268 

l. john leech 271 

li. "uncle mark" 277 

Lll. AUGUSTUS EGG 283 

LHI. MRS. COWDEN CLARKE . . ' . . . . 287 

LIV. THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 291 

LV. MANY "SPLENDID STROLLERS" .... 293 

LVI. A GROUP OF ACTORS 801 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAP. PAQB 

LVII. REV. JAMES WHITE 304 

LVTII. SOME VALUED FRIENDS OF THE PERIOD . . 306 

LIX. CH^UNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND .... 310 

LX. AN EDITOR AND AN HISTORIAN .... 313 

LXI. SOME LESSER FRIENDSHIPS OF THIS PERIOD . 316 

LXII. A BIG GROUP OF ARTISTS 324 

LXIII. HENRY FOTHERGILL CHORLEY .... 331 

LXIV. WILKIE COLLINS 334 

LXV. DICKENS AS AN EDITOR — HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH 

W. H. WILLS 341 

LXVI. EDMUND YATES 347 

LXVII. PERCY FITZGERALD 350 

LXVIII. CHARLES KENT 355 

LXIX. HENRY MORLEY 358 

LXX. G. A. SALA 361 

LXXI. MRS. LYNN LINTON 368 

LXXII. SOME MORE MEMBERS OF THE BAND . . 371 

LXXIII. TWO LADIES — MRS. GASKELL AND MISS MARTINEAU 375 

LXXIV. ARTHUR AND ALBERT SMITH AND GEORGE DOLBY 381 

LXXV. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN .... 385 

LXXVI. CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER . . . . .390 

LXXVII. THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL . . . 393 

INDEX 413 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing page 

charles dickens (1836) .... Frontispiece 

W. HARRISON AINSWORTH 12^ 

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 22 

WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADT SO 

H. K. BROWNE ("PHIZ") 44 

T. N. TALFOURD 50 

LANDOR'S HOUSE AT BATH 56 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 56 

DANIEL MACLISE, R.A 60 

CHARLES DICKENS (1839) 68 

THE FOUR ELDER CHILDREN OF CHARLES DICKENS — 
CHARLEY, MAMIE, KATEY, AND WALLY, WITH GRIP THE 

RAVEN 70 

the nymph at the waterfall at st. knighton's kieve, 

near tintagel 70 

4 ailsa park villas, twickenham, where dickens 

resided in 1838 76 

w. m. thackeray 88 

dickens and his friends in cornwall .... 88 

clarkson stanfield, r.a 110 

performance of "not so bad as we seem," before 
queen victoria and prince albert, at devonshire 

house, on may 16, 1851 114 

"the lighthouse" 114 

sir david wilkie, r.a 124 

francis jeffrey 124 

xv 



xvi 'LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing page 

PROFESSOR JOHN WILSON . 124 

SAMUEL ROGERS . '.'.'.■ 148 

CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRTAT, R.N. . ' . . . .156 

LEIGH HUNT 156 

CHARLES DICKENS IN HIS STUDY AT TAVISTOCK HOUSE . 174 

LORD LYTTON 210 

WASHINGTON IRVING 226 

ROCKINGHAM ;CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, THE HOME OF 

THE HON. MR. AND MRS. RICHARD WATSON . . 254 

THE HON. RICHARD WATSON 254 

THE HON. MRS. RICHARD WATSON 254 

KOHN LEECH . 272 

MARK LEMON 280 

AUGUSTUS EGG, R.A 280 

CHARLES DICKENS AS SIR CHARLES GOLDSTREAM IN "USED 

UP" 296 

NO. 1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE 304 

CHARLES DICKENS (1859) 324 

TOM SMART AND THE CHAIR, BY JOHN LEECH . . . 328 

W. H. WILLS 342 

gad's hill place ' . . . 358 

hans christian andersen 386 

john forster 394 

CHARLES DICKENS (1868) 406 



AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE 
AMERICAN EDITION 

"I do believe that from the great majority of honest 
minds on both sides, there cannot be absent the conviction 
that it would be better for this globe to be riven by an earth- 
quake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg, and 
abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that it should 
present the spectacle of these two great nations, each of 
which has, in its own way and hour, striven so hard and so 
successfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the one 
against the other." So said Charles Dickens in the last 
speech but one that he made in America — in April 1868. 
How his heart would have glowed if he had been alive when, 
forty-nine years later to the very month, the two great 
nations were thrown together in the culminating fight for 
freedom. How those immortal words of General Pershing's 
in 1918 would have thrilled him: "I have come to tell you 
that America would feel itself greatly honoured if its troops 
were engaged in the present battles." 

America and England have stood side by side in the great 
fight. The blood of their sons has mingled on the fields of 
France, and such a world disaster as Dickens proclaimed 
against has surely been rendered impossible for all time. I 
offer no apology for striking this note here. My book is 
almost wholly concerned with friendship. In the last two 
or three years there has been cemented a friendship between 
the two great English-speaking nations of tremendous 
import to the future of Man. There are captious people 
on both sides of the Atlantic, and they have loud voices, but 
on this side I know they do not speak for the masses ; I am 
not without evidence that the same may be truthfully said of 
those on the other side. The two great free Peoples are 
friends. They have suffered and sorrowed together in the 
common cause — the noblest cause of all — and a friendship 
so sealed in suffering and sorrow cannot but be lasting. 
Dickens' words were true in 1868; they have infinitely more 



xviii AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 

force to-day. Such an event as he then declared would be 
a world-disaster is unthinkable now. "Out of evil cometh 
good." Out of the horrors of the recent war has come this 
great friendship which will assuredly prove the mightiest 
influence for good the world has ever known. 

Dickens would have been the first to realise the true sig- 
nificance of this happening, and he would have been very 
glad. I believe, indeed, that if we were to trace back the 
influences that have combined to bring about this consumma- 
tion we should find that Dickens was one of the most potent. 
He offended America when he was yet a very young man, 
but I think the resentment never lay very deep, and all the 
time the spirits of Little Nell, and Smike, Mr. Pickwick and 
Sam Weller, Paul Dombey and Oliver Twist were exercising 
their good influence. When he returned to the land of Wash- 
ington Irving and Longfellow after a lapse of a quarter of 
a century, America showed him that she had forgiven, and 
he, on his part, was glad to grasp the hand of friendship and 
to make amends nobly. That declaration which accom- 
panies every copy of American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit 
bears lasting testimony to the magnanimity of Americans 
and the frank true-heartedness of Dickens. He laughed at 
national foibles, he declared boldly and uncompromisingly 
the grievance under which he chafed, but the evidence is 
overwhelming that in his heart always there was a genuine 
admiration and affection for the American people. 

They perhaps had some justification for the resentment 
they felt in 1842 and 1843, but in truth their hearts never 
ceased to incline to the man who had brought so much 
healthful enjoyment into their lives, and when he revisited 
them all unpleasantness was flung aside forever more. 
To-day the spirit of Dickens holds sway in America as it 
always did, and there can be no doubt but that the common 
affection for that great lover of humanity, that great pro- 
claimer of the fundamental goodness of human nature, has 
done more than almost anything else, save the common sor- 
rows of the recent war, to bring the two Peoples to a better 
understanding of each other, and so to friendship. I believe 
that the spirits of good men who have passed over go on 
incessantly serving us who are awaiting our turn. Is it too 



AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xix 

extreme a fancy to imagine the spirits of Dickens and Irving, 
and Longfellow, and Holmes, and Felton, and Lowell, close- 
bound there as they were here, working together to bring 
the two great nations whom they so nobly served when in 
the flesh close together in bonds of imperishable friendship? 

I would say but a word or two about this book. I have 
learned from American reviewers (who, without exception, 
have been most generous) that I have omitted one or two 
Americans who were friendly with Dickens. I hope I shall 
be forgiven such a fault. I think it will be found that I have 
omitted very few men of real standing in their time who were 
on terms of friendship with the novelist. One or two who 
have been named are never referred to in any biography of 
Dickens or in any of his letters, and therefore can scarcely 
be presumed to have entered into his life to any appreciable 
extent. A more common criticism has been that I included 
rather too many people, and that some famous people have 
no business in the book because, although they had extensive 
associations with the novelist, they were never friends. One 
American reviewer has included George Cruikshank in this 
category. He is wrong, for George was, in the earlier days, 
very friendly indeed with Dickens. But my purpose was 
not simply to treat of friendship as such, but to show, if I 
could, how Dickens and great men and women of his time 
acted and reacted upon one another, and so to throw some 
fresh light upon a great and attractive personality. That 
is why I called the book The Dickens Circle, and not The 
Friendships of Charles Dickens. 

For the rest, I want to say how deeply the reception of 
this book in America has touched me. Not one reviewer has 
uttered an unkind word. It is in keeping with all my experi- 
ence of Americans. I am proud in the possession of many 
personal friends across the Atlantic. Some I have met in 
the flesh, and spent happy hours with them; others I know 
autographically ; but all of them I may truthfully describe 
as friends. If this book creates more friendships for me in 
the land of Washington Irving, I shall be a happy man. 

J, W. T. Ley. 

Newport, Monmouthshire, England. 
August, 1919. 



THE DICKENS CIRCLE 



THE DICKENS CIRCLE 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTORY 



" My art has brought acquaintances by scores, 
But to my character I owe my friends.", 

There is no surer test of a man's character than to ask, 
"Who are his friends?" For the unworthy man does not 
hold the friendship of worthy men. Few men come out of 
the test better than Charles Dickens. Many other great men 
have had big circles ; many Davids have had their Jonathans ; 
but no man ever had a bigger or more notable circle, and 
none was ever more loved by those who were admitted to 
his friendship. He had, indeed, the capacity for friendship 
in a superlative degree. Of the attractiveness of his person- 
ality many have written in terms of enthusiasm. They all 
bear testimony to the truth of Forster's declaration: 

"His place was not to be filled by any other. To the 
most trivial talk he gave the attraction of his own 
character. It might be a small matter; something he 
had read during the day, some quaint odd fancy from 
a book, a vivid little outdoor picture, the laughing ex- 
posure of some imposture, or a burst of sheer mirthful 
enjoyment; but of its kind it would be something 
unique, because genuinely part of himself. This, and 
his unwearying animal spirits, made him the most 
delightful of companions ; no claim on good-fellowship 
ever found him wanting; and no one so constantly 
recalled to his friends the description Johnson gave 
of Garrick, as the cheerfullest man of his age." 



2 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

In another place Forster says: 

"It was an excellent saying of the first Lord Shaftes- 
bury, that, seeing every man of any capacity holds 
within himself two men, the wise and the foolish, each 
of them ought freely to be allowed his turn; and it 
was one of the secrets of Dickens's social charm that he 
could, in strict accordance with this saying, allow each 
part of him its turn: could afford thoroughly to give 
rest and relief to what was serious in him, and when the 
time came to play his gambols, could surrender himself 
wholly to the enjoyment of the time, and become the 
very genius and embodiment of one of his own most 
whimsical fancies." 

These are the declarations of a man who loved Dickens as 
his life, but they are confirmed by a hundred witnesses. But 
he was something very much more than a bright and delight- 
ful companion. He won friendship, and he won it because 
he gave it. "Charles Dickens," says Lady Pollock, "was 
and is to me the ideal of friendship." "He was indeed a man 
of magnanimous and practical sympathy," wrote Mrs. Cat- 
termole. Read of him cheering Macready in his lonely re- 
tirement ; read of him going to see Stanfield in his illness and 
so cheering him by his description of Fechter's latest play, 
"fighting a duel with the washstand, defying the bedstead, 
and saving the life of the sofa-cushion," that the sick man 
"turned the corner on the spot." Read of him always glad 
to slap a friend on the back and felicitate him on a success ; 
always first to cheer him in failure; always by to grasp his 
hand and say and do the right thing in sorrow and suffering ; 
read of him helping to start capable young writers on the 
road that leads to success ; read of him as an editor to whom 
nothing was too much trouble if he could advise or help a 
young and promising contributor; read of him the life and 
the soul of children's parties. What wonder that this man 
should have attracted good men to him and wound their 
affections round his heart? 

"Angels," says Young, "from Friendship gather half their 
joys." Dickens was, indeed, a happy man. Scarce a great 
man of his time but loved him. And, be it noted, in all his 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

wide circle there was none who sought reflected glory. They 
all shone by their own unaided light. Many of them were 
famous before he had been heard of; there were few of them 
who were not better educated than he was, who had not had 
better opportunities in life. Herein, surely, lies proof of the 
man's innate greatness. It is a wonderful thing that this 
newspaper reporter who had had no opportunities but what 
he had made for himself, whose earliest admirers had been 
the frequenters of the bar-parlour at Chatham, who had had 
practically no schooling at all, whose chief mentors in his 
boyhood had been the inmates of a Debtors' prison, whose 
boyhood companions had been the drudges of a blacking 
warehouse — that this man should, before he was thirty years 
old, have been the dominating spirit in a circle which com- 
prised some of the finest minds of a period which was so rich 
in fine minds. 

Before he was thirty years old! Nay, before he was 
twenty-six years old. He celebrated his thirtieth birthday 
in America, where he had already formed close friendships 
with Washington Irving, Longfellow, Felton, and others, 
whilst he had left behind him men like Macready, Maclise, 
Forster, Jerrold, Talfourd, Jeffrey, Landor, who loved him 
truly, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship. 

When he was yet some two or three years short of thirty 
he was one of the leading members of the Shakespeare 
Society, in association with Proctor, Talfourd, Macready, 
Thackeray, Blanchard, Charles Knight, Douglas Jerrold, 
Maclise, Stanfield, Cattermole, Charles and Thomas Land- 
seer, and Frank Stone. Every one of these names is that 
of a man of first-class abilities who called Dickens friend. 
And to them, even at this time, must be added Jeffrey, Leigh 
Hunt, Landor, Samuel Rogers, Carlyle, etc. A short three 
years before Dickens had been an utterly obscure newspaper 
reporter with never a book to his credit. Practically every 
one of these men had at that time achieved independent fame. 
Several of them were much older than Dickens ; three of 
them were old enough to be his grandfather, and had been 
famous before he was born. They were exceptionally gifted 
men of widely differing temperaments, irresistibly attracted 
by the magnetism of this young writer. And as the years 
rolled on none of them drifted away. In one or two cases 



4 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

the friendships were temporarily clouded, but in all such 
cases the sun rose again, and the friendships were renewed 
to last unto death. The Circle grew steadily year by year, 
and each new friendship was cemented as the old ones had 
been. 

It was his sheer joy in life, his frank, hearty, wholly un- 
spoiled outlook, his joyous laugh, yet withal his realisation 
of the seriousness, as well as the joy of life, his love for 
human nature and his never-failing determination to take it 
at its best — these were the qualities that won for him such 
a host of friends. It has been noted that he was the domi- 
nating personality in all this great company. That surely 
is the most remarkable fact of all. He was not simply ad- 
mitted to the company of his peers : it was they who formed 
the Dickens Circle. They were the planets and stars that 
circled around the Dickens sun. Let it be a Christmas party, 
a game of leap-frog, a trip to Cornwall, amateur theatricals, 
a public dinner to Macready or Thackeray, or a private 
dinner to Black — whatsoever it be, if Dickens is in it at all, 
he is the moving spirit. All his associates, great men as 
well as lesser men, are dominated by the personality of this 
man who, in social upspring, education, and all that usually 
counts for so much, was their inferior. 

It is no conscious, aggressive domination either; it is just 
the working of the natural law which forces the strong man 
to the top. He had learned self-reliance in a hard school. 
All he had achieved was due absolutely to his inborn genius 
and to his own force of character. He had faced fearful 
odds in his most impressionable years — the years during 
which the boy begets the man. He had conquered, and out 
of the fight he had come strong, self-reliant, clean-minded 
and pure-hearted, joyous at his victory, with no trace of 
bitterness in him. Those early struggles had made him what 
he was. They had had some ill-effects, no doubt, but the 
good far outweighed the ill, and at the age of twenty-five 
Dickens sprang before the world, fully equipped to take and 
to hold his place among men. 

Let us spend a short time in the Dickens Circle. Let us 
see the man in the company of his friends. Thus shall we 
come to know him better even than we know him now, and 
to love him more. We shall see him the j oiliest of com- 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

panions for the social hour; we shall see him the kind sym- 
pathetic friend in times of sorrow and of sadness; we shall 
see him almost womanly in his tenderness when his friends 
are stricken; we shall see him ever ready to prove his friend- 
ship at whatsoever sacrifice; we shall see him winning and 
holding surely the whole-hearted love of scores of men who 
did not lightly give their love ; we shall find that he was indeed 
"the ideal of friendship" — "the good, the gentle, high-gifted, 
ever friendly, noble Dickens, every inch of him an honest 
man." 



CHAPTER II 

FRIENDS OF BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 

And to imitate David Copperfield, and begin at the begin- 
ning, there are one or two friends of the novelist's early 
years who certainly must have mention. First, a couple of 
friends of his boyhood. Let Bob Fagin have pride of place. 
Scarcely entitled to a place in the Dickens Circle, you say. 
Well, no; but a friend of Dickens's all the same, a friend in 
the darkest days : Bob Fagin, the fellow-drudge in the black- 
ing warehouse, who, when a third drudge, Poll Green, ob- 
jected to the future novelist being treated as "the young 
gentleman," "settled him speedily"; who, when "the young 
gentleman" was one day taken ill, was so kind to him, filled 
empty blacking-bottles with hot water, and applied relays 
of them to his side half the day, and when it came towards 
evening, refused to allow him to go home alone. "I was too 
proud to let him know about the prison," Dickens tells us, 
"and after making several efforts to get rid of him, to all 
of which Bob Fagin in his goodness was deaf, shook hands 
with him on the steps of a house near Southwark Bridge on 
the Surrey side, making believe that I lived there. As a 
finishing piece of reality, in case of his looking back, I 
knocked at the door, and asked, when the woman opened it, 
if that was Mr. Robert Fagin's home." Kind-hearted Bob 
Fagin, it was hardly fair, was it? to use your name so roughly 
in after years. 

Then there were his schoolfellows at Wellington House 
Academy, whither he went when the days of drudgery were 
over — Daniel Tobin, Henry Danson, Owen R. Thomas, and 
Richard Bray. They were his chief associates in those days 
when the sun had begun to shine again. That the young 
Dickens made some impression on these boyish friends is 
evident from the fact that Thomas preserved a letter which 

6 



FRIENDS OF BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 7 

the future Boz wrote to him when he was between thirteen 
and fourteen years old. 

Writing to Forster after Dickens's death, Thomas said: 
" After the lapse of years I recognised the celebrated writer 
as the individual I had known so well as a boy, from having 
preserved this note; and upon Mr. Dickens visiting Reading 
in December 1854 to give one of his earliest readings, . . . 
I took the opportunity of showing it to him, when he was 
much diverted therewith. On the same occasion we conversed 
about mutual schoolfellows, and among others Daniel Tobin 
was referred to, whom I remember to have been Dickens's 
most intimate companion in the school-days (1824 to 1826). 
His reply was that Tobin either was then, or had previously 
been, assisting him in the capacity of amanuensis ; but there 
is a subsequent mystery about Tobin, in connection with his 
friend and patron, which I have never been able to compre- 
hend; for I understood shortly afterwards that there was an 
entire separation between them, and it must have been an 
offence of some gravity to have sundered an acquaintance 
formed in early youth, and which had endured, greatly to 
Tobin's advantage, so long." 

There was no mystery about it. "The offence," says 
Forster, "went no deeper than the having at last worn out 
even Dickens's patience and kindness." Forster records that 
he could recollect Dickens helping this old schoolfellow on 
many occasions, and he adds : "His applications for relief 
were so incessantly repeated, that to cut him and them adrift 
altogether was the only way of escape from what had become 
an intolerable nuisance." 

Danson, who became a physician, also recorded at For- 
ster's request, his recollections of those days, and it is inter- 
esting to note that he remembered that the boys had a small 
club for the lending and circulating of small tales written by 
Dickens. He also records that the theatrical instinct was 
even then strong in Dickens. The boys mounted small thea- 
tres, and got up very gorgeous scenery to illustrate "The 
Miller and his Men" (for which play Dickens retained a 
curious liking — I had nearly written affection — all his life) 
and "Cherry and Fair Star." 

It will be seen that Dickens made no lasting friendship at 
school, though Tobin hung on to him for years ; but with 



8 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

a schoolfellow of his brother's he did form a friendship that 
endured till the end. This was Thomas Mitton, who was 
with the other Dickens boys at Mr. Dawson's school in 
Hunter Street, Brunswick Square. Afterwards, it is be- 
lieved, he and Charles were fellow-clerks at Mr. Molloy's in 
New Square, Lincoln's Inn, where Dickens was employed for 
a few weeks between leaving school and going to Mr. Black- 
more's. Mitton stuck to the law, and in 1838 we find him 
drafting his friend's will. And so late as June 13, 1865, we 
find a letter to him giving a full account of the Staplehurst 
accident. 

There is a friend who should be mentioned here, though he 
only just walks across the stage, as it were. His name was 
Potter, and he was a fellow-clerk in the office of Mr. Black- 
more, attorney, Gray's Inn. It is recorded of him that he 
did much to stimulate Dickens's theatrical tastes. The pair 
took every opportunity, we are told by their employer, of 
going together to a minor theatre, where they not infre- 
quently engaged in parts. That is all we know about Potter, 
but he was Dickens's friend — or shall we say pal? — during a 
very interesting and not at all unimportant phase of the 
novelist's life, and so he is entitled to a place in the Circle. 

We pass on to the next period in the career of Pickwick's 
author. In the big Dickens Circle see that John Black is 
given his proper place. He was not an intimate friend; I 
suppose he and Dickens rarely met on really equal terms ; 
but Black was the first friend who influenced Dickens's 
career and encouraged him when he could as yet scarcely have 
dreamed of future fame. "Dear old Black ! my first out-and- 
out appreciator," Dickens wrote only a few weeks before he 
died. He never forgot that it was "this good old mirth- 
loving man" who flung the slipper after him, as he put it, 
who first recognised his genius and encouraged him. For 
Black was Editor of the "Morning Chronicle" when young 
Dickens was a reporter on that paper, and Charles Mackay, 
who was also a member of the staff, tells us that he repeat- 
edly heard Black predict the future greatness of Charles 
Dickens. Indeed, says Mackay, it was because he had heard 
his Editor say this so often that he begged from him the 
letter which Dickens wrote proposing to write for the paper 
the Sketches by Boz. Dickens was an unknown man with 



FRIENDS OF BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 9 

no worldly prospects when he became a member of Black's 
staff, and undoubtedly he owed much to the Editor, who was 
then past his fiftieth birthday. He always acknowledged it 
and paid hearty tribute. In that well-known speech at the 
dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund in 1865, for instance, 
in which he recalled some of his journalistic experiences, he 
said: "Returning home from exciting political meetings in 
the country to the waiting press in London, I do verily 
believe I have been upset in almost every description of vehicle 
known in this country. I have been, in my time, belated in 
miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles 
from London, in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses 
and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for publi- 
cation, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by 
the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from 
the broadest of hearts I ever knew." And I have already 
quoted what he said not long before he died. After he gave 
up journalism he saw but little of this excellent man, but 
they met occasionally, Black proud of his old reporter, 
Dickens loving and respecting his old Editor and never for- 
getting his indebtedness to him. In 1843 Black ceased to 
be Editor of the "Morning Chronicle," "in circumstances," 
says Forster, "strongly reviving all Dickens's sympathies." 
The novelist wrote : "I am deeply grieved about Black. Sorry 
from my heart's core. If I could find him out, I would go 
and comfort him this moment." He did find him out, and 
he gladdened his old Editor's heart by arranging in his 
honour a dinner at Greenwich. This is the last record of any 
meeting between the two men, but I do not doubt but that 
they did meet again, for Black lived another twelve years 
not far from London. 

Two of Dickens's colleagues on the "Morning Chronicle" 
were Charles Mackay and Thomas Beard. The former calls 
for no more mention than he has already had, but with Beard 
a very close friendship was formed, which lasted right 
through the years until that sad day in June 1870. Beard 
was the first friend he made when he entered the gallery; 
indeed, he was the only friend among his gallery colleagues, 
for Dickens seems to have kept himself very much to himself 
in those days — a curious fact in view of his great capacity 
for friendship and his great sociability in all other periods 



10 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

of his career. Beard's was one of the familiar faces at 
Twickenham in the summer of 1838; he was present at the 
Haunted Man christening dinner; and he was a guest at the 
wedding of Kate Dickens to Charles Collins in 1860; whilst 
in 1862, when the novelist thought of going to America for 
a reading tour, he proposed to his old friend to accompany 
him as secretary. 

There is one famous man whose place is in this chapter. 
He is Wentworth Dilke, grandfather of a still more famous 
grandson. He knew Dickens in the blacking warehouse days. 
He was acquainted with the future novelist's father, with 
whom he one day visited the warehouse, and gave the young 
(drudge a half-crown, receiving in return a low bow. In after 
years Dilke related this story to Forster, who mentioned it 
to Dickens. "He was silent for several minutes," says the 
biographer. "I felt that I had unintentionally touched a 
painful place in his memory ; and to Mr. Dilke I never spoke 
of the subject again." A few weeks later Dickens referred 
to the matter, however, and as a result of the conversation 
that followed, related the whole story of his unhappy boy- 
hood. So that it is to Dilke that we owe the knowledge of that 
experience in the novelist's boyhood which helps us so much 
to understand the whole of his subsequent career. Through 
the after years Dilke remained a friend, though not a very 
intimate one. They were associated in connection with the 
Literary Fund, and were in opposite camps in respect of its 
management. For some years, says Forster, he fought un- 
successfully against Dilke in this matter, but there was no 
personal feeling in the struggle. 



CHAPTER III 

WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 

Suddenly, at the age of twenty-four, Dickens sprang into 
fame as the author of Pickwick. Previously, however, the 
Sketches by Boz, appearing in the "Morning Chronicle," 
had attained a considerable degree of popularity, and a few 
of the more discerning had read into them the promise which 
was so soon fulfilled. Among these was William Harrison 
Ainsworth, who ascertained the identity of Boz, advised him 
to publish the Sketches in book form, and introduced him to 
a publisher and to an illustrator. There is something odd in 
the fact that the man who rendered Dickens two of the great- 
est services of his life, has almost the least mention of any 
of the novelist's friends in Forster's book. For he very 
materially influenced Dickens's life. He was not only the 
first to encourage him to publish a book, introducing him to 
publisher and illustrator — Macrone and George Cruikshank 
— but also first made the young writer and John Forster 
acquainted, thus bringing about one of the most memorable 
friendships in literary history. In view of these facts one 
would expect to find him filling a very prominent place in a 
biography of Dickens from the pen of Forster. Yet he is 
not mentioned more than about half a dozen times. 

The explanation is that though Ainsworth was still alive 
when Forster wrote his book, he had completely dropped out 
of the old circle, and was almost completely forgotten. 
Further, after the first few years he ceased to be one of 
Dickens's really intimate friends. In the beginning he was, 
undoubtedly, and up to the late 'forties he was still welcomed 
as a pleasant companion, but the original intimacy disap- 
peared. The truth is, I think, that Ainsworth had not those 
solid qualities of friendship that Dickens required, and found 
in others. But in his early manhood he must have been a 

11 



12 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

striking and attractive personality, and, in addition, he was 
the first prominent literary man with whom Dickens asso- 
ciated on level terms. 

Imagine what the youthful "Boz" would feel. See what 
his boyhood had been. See how he had passed through the 
successive states of drudgery. Then he writes a few 
"specials" for his paper. Imagine his elation when he dis- 
covers that these sketches have been observed by no less a 
person than Harrison Ainsworth, the novelist who has re- 
cently taken the town by storm with "Rookwood" and that 
glorious description of Dick Turpin's ride to York. Is it 
surprising that he is elated by the honour of such a man's 
friendship? And naturally there is also a sense of indebted- 
ness to Ainsworth for suggesting and facilitating the publi- 
cation of the sketches in book form. 

And so for a time the two young novelists are close friends 
and constant companions. But after a year years, as 
Dickens steadily establishes himself and forms a circle of 
famous friends around him, these two drift apart, until the 
old ties are severed altogether, and they live on through year 
after year without ever meeting at all. Ainsworth seems to 
have lost almost all his friends in much the same way. Indeed, 
the story of his life makes sad reading, for it is a tragic 
picture that it presents in the 'seventies of the old man, who 
thirty years before was one of the most brilliant stars in the 
London firmament, now neglected and wellnigh forgotten. 
"I recall a dinner at Teddington in the 'sixties," says Mr. 
Percy Fitzgerald, "given by Frederic Chapman, the pub- 
lisher, at which were Forster and Browning. The latter said 
humorously: 'A sad, forlorn-looking being stopped me to- 
day, and reminded me of old times. He presently resolved 
himself into — whom do you think? — Harrison Ainsworth!' 
'Good heavens !' cried Forster, 'is he still alive?' " That is 
one of the saddest anecdotes that I have ever read. 

In the early days, however, when "Rookwood" was out- 
distanced in popularity only by Pickwick itself, and Forster 
was just beginning that career which was to make him one 
of the greatest literary forces of his time, we may be sure 
that none of the three ever foresaw the day when one should 
learn with surprise that another was still alive. It was at 
the Christmas of 1836 that Dickens and Forster met at 





~0t/\A^<? c/yi- - 



CJyt/C^rcsv <si/Z%~ 



WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 13 

Ainsworth's house, and for the next few years the three were 
inseparable. Forster does not tell us that Ainsworth took 
part in those daily ridings which are recalled with the sad- 
ness with which the memory of the happy days of long ago 
must ever be tinged, but he certainly did. Mr. S. M. Ellis, 
in his delightful book, "William Harrison Ainsworth and 
His Friends," makes that quite clear : 

"In the first few years of their friendship the three 
were devoted to horse exercise, and Dickens and Forster 
would ride out from town to Kensal Lodge to pick up 
Ainsworth. . . . The three literati would gallop off for 
miles into the lovely country that stretched away to the 
north and west. Away by Twyford Abbey and the 
clear, winding Brent to tiny Perivale and Greenford, 
most sylvan of hamlets, through the green vale of Mid- 
dlesex to Ruislip, and home by Stanmore and Harrow. 
Or another day away across breezy Old Oak Common 
to Acton, stopping for a few minutes at Berrymead 
Priory to exchange greetings with Bulwer Lytton. On 
through Acton's narrow High Street, with its quaint 
raised pavement and ancient red-tiled houses, past 
'Fordhook,' Fielding's last and well-loved home, past 
Ealing's parks and long village green, round through 
orchard-bordered lanes to Chiswick, with its countless 
memories, and so by Shepherd's Bush to Wood Lane and 
the Scrubbs, home again." 

Week-end trips, we are told, were also frequently indulged 
in together, and in view of the undoubted fact that there 
was this intimacy, we may, with Mr. R. Renton, 1 echo Mr. 
Ellis's regret that Forster "devotes but a few words to the 
social or convivial phase of Dickens in these first glorious 
years of youth and fame. He barely mentions the frequent 
rides through the lovely country surrounding the suburbs of 
London which Dickens delighted to take in company with 
his two intimates, Forster and Ainsworth, and the even more 
frequent dinings and festivities the trio enjoyed go almost 
unrecorded." 

1 "John Forster and his Friendships." 



14 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

'Tis true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true. The only direct refer- 
ence he makes to Ainsworth's share in the enjoyments of 
those days is when, writing of the summer of 1838, which 
Dickens spent at Twickenham, he says: "A friend now 
especially welcome, also, was the novelist, Mr. Ainsworth, 
who shared with us incessantly for the three following years 
in the companionship which began at his house, . . . and 
to whose sympathy in tastes and pursuits, accomplishments 
in literature, open-hearted generous ways, and cordial hos- 
pitality, many of the pleasures of later years were due." 

As a matter of fact, Dickens was at Ainsworth's house, 
Kensal Lodge, very frequently indeed, and we are told that, 
"as the host's most intimate friend," he used to preside at 
one end of the table. Open house was kept at Kensal Lodge, 
but still more was this the case when Ainsworth moved to 
Kensal Manor House in 1841. 

Ainsworth was one of the company at the dinner to cele- 
brate the completion of Pickwick, of which he received a 
presentation copy — one of the three specially-bound copies 
sent to the author by his publishers, as witness this letter 
to Forster: 

"Chapman and Hall have just sent me . . . three 
extra-super bound copies of Pickwick, as per specimen 
enclosed. The first I forward to you, the second I 
have presented to our good friend Ainsworth, and the 
third, Kate has retained for herself." 

Of the Pickwick dinner Ainsworth wrote to his friend, 

James Crossley: 

"On Saturday last we celebrated the completion of 
The Pickwick Papers. We had a capital dinner, with 
capital wine and capital speeches. Dickens, of course, 
was in the chair. Talfourd was the Vice, and an ex- 
cellent Vice he made. . . . Just before he was about to 
propose the toast of the evening the head waiter — for 
it was at a tavern that the carouse took place — entered, 
and placed a glittering temple of confectionery on the 
table, beneath the canopy of which stood a little figure 
of the illustrious Mr. Pickwick. This was the work of 



WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 15 

the landlord. As you may suppose, it was received with 
great applause. Dickens made a feeling speech in reply 
to the Serjeant's eulogy. . . . Just before dinner 
Dickens received a cheque for £750 from his publishers." 

This is the most extended account of the dinner that 
exists. Ainsworth continued to be a guest at these christen- 
ing dinners until Dombey, whilst Dickens was certainly 
present at the "Tower of London" dinner. 

Mr. Ellis points out that Ainsworth had quite a marked 
influence on Dickens's earlier work. Undoubtedly it was the 
popularity of "Rookwood" that caused Sam Weller to select 
as his contribution to the harmony on a certain occasion 
the song, "Bold Turpin vunce on Hounslow Heath," and it 
is interesting to note also that the name of Turpin's com- 
panion robber was Sikes. But, above all, it was to Ains- 
worth that Dickens was indebted for an introduction to the 
brothers Grant, better known to the wide, wide world as the 
Cheeryble Brothers. That Dickens did actually meet the 
Grants is now established beyond any doubt at all. To 
James Crossley, on October 31, 1838, Ainsworth wrote: 
"Dickens has just started for Stratford-upon-Avon and 
Chester, accompanied by Mr. Browne (the 'Phiz' of Pick- 
wick and Nickleby), the artist. He will reach Manchester 
on Saturday, I believe. On Sunday next Forster starts, per 
railroad, to join him, and I suppose on Monday they will 
call on you, as they are armed with letters of introduction 
to you. Dickens's object is to see the interior of a cotton 
mill — I fancy with reference to some of his publications. I 
have given him letters to G. Winter and Hugh Beaver." 

On the authority of one of Ainsworth's daughters, Dickens 
paid this visit with the definite object of meeting the Grants, 
as well as of seeing the inside of a cotton mill. Ainsworth 
had known them when he was a boy, for Manchester was his 
native city, and he had described them to his friend. He 
now gave Mr. Winter a hint, and that gentleman arranged 
a dinner to which Dickens and the Grants were invited. And 
so Ainsworth rendered a further great service to Dickens 
and to the world at large. 

During this visit to Manchester the three friends went out 
to Cheadle Hall, Cheshire, in order to see Ainsworth's three 



16 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

little girls, who were at boarding-schooHhere, and they "took 
with them three books, duly inscribed and autographed, to 
present to the three little girls, who had never seen their 
visitors before." 

In 1839 Ainsworth had the gratification of visiting his 
native city in company with his famous friend, and of being 
entertained by the citizens at dinner. The position must have 
been an embarrassing one for him, as the following extract 
from a letter to'Crossley snows : 

"Now, in respect of the public dinner. Is it to be 
given to me or Dickens — or to both? Acting upon 
your former letter, I invited my friend to accompany 
me, imagining the dinner was to be given in my honour ; 
but I have no feeling whatever in the matter, and only 
desire to have a distinct understanding about it. If 
the dinner is given expressly to Dickens, I think a letter 
of invitation should be sent him. But you are the best 
judge of the propriety of this step; and it might be 
only giving needless trouble, as he is sure to come if the 
dinner is to be given to me." 

The spirit reflected by this letter is excellent. The truth 
appears to be that Ainsworth had been originally invited, and 
that he had invited Dickens to accompany him, and the citi- 
zens of Manchester rather allowed the glory of "Boz" to 
eclipse the glory of Ainsworth. But the latter was devoid 
of jealousy, and he was quite willing that the greater honour 
should go to his friend, whose genius he readily and frankly 
recognised. Needless to say, Forster kept them company on 
this visit. The three friends stayed with Mr. Hugh Beaver, 
at the Temple, Cheetham Hill. They arrived in Manchester 
on Saturday, January 12. On the Monday the public dinner 
was held, followed, on the Tuesday, by a dinner at Crossley's 
house, and on the Wednesday by a dinner at Winter's house. 

One doubts if throughout his long life there was any inci- 
dent upon which Ainsworth looked back with so much grati- 
fication as this visit to Manchester. To return to his native 
city a famous man, and to be feted by the citizens, was in 
itself a notable and pleasing event, but to be accompanied by 
and feted in company with the most popular writer of his 



WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 17 

time — whom he would call "friend" — it must have been a 
proud day indeed for him. 

At about this time Dickens and Ainsworth had an inter- 
esting scheme in hand which was destined not to fructify. "I 
think I have told you," the latter wrote to Crossley, "that 
Dickens and I are about to illustrate ancient and modern 
London in a Pickwick form. We expect much from this." 
It would have been an almost ideal collaboration. Who could 
have dealt with ancient London so well as he who was to write 
"The Tower of London" and "Old Saint Paul's," and who 
could have dealt with modern London so delightfully as the 
author of Sketches by Boz and Pickwick? But the scheme 
was abandoned, and this is the only reference to it that exists. 

There is no need to deal here with Dickens's dispute with 
Macrone. Ainsworth had nought to do with it, except that 
he was naturally interested and sorry that the unpleasant- 
ness should have arisen between the publisher and the author 
whom he had been instrumental in bringing together. There 
was, however, real danger of a rupture between the two 
novelists, arising out of Dickens's dispute with Bentley in 
1839, which led to Ainsworth succeeding Dickens as Editor 
of "Bentley's Miscellany." A rumour got abroad to the effect 
that Forster had persuaded Dickens to break his agreement 
with the publisher, and Dickens wrote a letter to Ainsworth 
from which the following is an extract : 

"If the subject of this letter, or anything contained 
in it, should eventually become the occasion of any dis- 
agreement between you and me, it would cause me very 
deep and sincere regret. But with this contingency — 
even this before me — I feel that I must speak out with- 
out reserve, and that every manly, honest, and just con- 
sideration impels me to do so. By some means . . . 
the late negotiations between yourself, myself, and Mr. 
Bentley have placed a mutual friend of ours in a false 
position, and one in which he has no right to stand, and 
exposed him to an accusation . . . equally untrue and 
undeserved. . . . However painful it will be to put 
myself in communication once again with Mr. Bentley, 
and openly appeal to you to confirm what I shall tell 
him, there is no alternative, unless you will frankly and 



18 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

openly, and for the sake of your old friend, as well as 
very intimate and valued one, avow to Mr. Bentley your- 
self that he (Forster) is not to blame. . . . Believe 
me, Ainsworth, that for your sake, no less than on 
Forster's account, this should be done. . . . I do not 
mean to hurt or offend you by anything I have said, 
and I should be truly grieved to find that I have done 
so. But I must speak strongly, because I feel strongly." 

Happily the affair ended amicably, and there was no 
breach between the friends. This letter (which is given in 
full in Mr. Ellis's book) was written in March 1839. A 
month earlier Dickens had handed over the Editorship of the 
"Miscellany" to Ainsworth in the following words : "In fact, 
then, my child, you have changed hands. Henceforth I resign 
you to the guardianship and protection of one of my most 
intimate and valued friends, Mr. Ainsworth, with whom, and 
with you, my best wishes will ever remain." x 

In 1842 Ainsworth was one of the party that gathered at 
Greenwich to welcome Dickens home from America. After 
that, references to meetings of the two novelists are very 
few indeed. In 1847 Ainsworth, during a Continental tour, 
met Dickens at Lausanne, and the latter wrote to Forster: 
"I breakfasted with him at the Hotel Gibbon next morning. 
. . . We walked about all day, talking of our old days at 
Kensal Lodge." Those old days were not forgotten, but 
times had changed, and the two men who once saw one 
another almost daily now but rarely met. There was in each 
a sentiment for the "day that is dead," however, and in 1849 
Dickens did a very graceful thing when he invited Ainsworth 
to act as godfather to his sixth son (now Mr. Henry Field- 
ing Dickens, K.C.). Four years later Ainsworth gave up 
Kensal Manor House, and those glorious reunions were once 
for all ended. 

The last record of any meeting between Dickens and Ains- 
worth is in June 1C54, when the latter, who had gone to live 
in Brighton, came up to London expressly to meet some of 
his old friends. Thackeray tried to effect a reunion in 1857. 
He proposed a dinner at which Dickens, Ainsworth, Maclise, 

> "Familiar Epistle from a Parent to a Child." 



WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 19 

and himself should meet once more and live again the old, 
far-off happy days. But his efforts failed. "Ainsworth and 
'Boz' won't come," he wrote to Maclise, "and press for delay. 
Well, then, although I know, from the state of the banker's 
account at present, next week there will probably be about 
five shillings wherewith to buy a dinner, yet let them have 
their will. Something tells me that it may be long before 
the banquet in question takes place — but it is their wish — 
so be it. The greatest of all the names of Allah (Goethe 
says) is 'Amen.' " And he wrote to Ainsworth: "Here comes 
a note from Dickens, who begs, too, for a remission of the 
dinner. As I can't have it without my two roaring animals, 
and the play wouldn't be worth coming to with the part of 
Hamlet omitted, the great Titmarsh Banquet is hereby post- 
poned, to be held on some other occasion, however, with un- 
common splendour." 

Thackeray's forebodings were realised, and it is certain 
that the two friends who had been so intimate in the first 
days of popularity and success, did not meet for some years 
prior to Dickens's death. For on July 7, 1870, Ainsworth 
wrote to Charles Kent : "I was greatly shocked by the sudden 
death of poor Dickens. I have not seen him of late years, 
but I always hoped that we might meet again, as of old." 

The tone of this letter certainly suggests that there had 
been an estrangement, and the impression is confirmed by 
Thackeray's note to Maclise just quoted: "Ainsworth and 
'Boz' won't come." There is no direct evidence of an es- 
trangement, however, and for memory's sake — the memory 
of those joyous early years — one hopes that the impression is 
false. 



CHAPTER IV 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 



It must have been a red-letter day for the obscure young 
newspaper reporter on which he learned that his first book 
was to be illustrated by the great George Cruikshank. For 
George was famous before Dickens had left school, and in 
1837 he was the most famous illustrator of the day. For 
an unknown author to have his name on the title-page of 
his book was a guarantee against failure. Sam Weller came 
into being almost simultaneously with the publication of the 
Sketches, so that Dickens did not owe so much to the artist 
as he might have done, but the fact remains that the first 
real distinction that he ever had was that of having a book 
illustrated by the great George Cruikshank. And we may 
regard it as likely that he would, in a sense, be "carried 
away" by this personal acquaintance with one whose name 
had been a household word when he was a boy. But after 
a while he began to make other and better friends, and grad- 
ually he became less enthusiastic about Cruikshank and about 
Ainsworth too. I think we are justified in assuming this. 
It implies no reproach to the novelist. To put it in some- 
what colloquial language, whilst Cruikshank was a distin- 
guished man to be on intimate terms with, and whilst he was 
all very well as a companion on a convivial evening — at a 
Greenwich or Richmond dinner, shall we say? — little of 
his company would go a very long way. 

For the Sketches sixteen illustrations were done, and the 
artist did a new frontispiece for the first cheap edition. It 
should be noted that in no fewer than five of these pictures, 
portraits of Dickens appear. In the title-page of the sec- 
ond series, both author and artist may be seen waving flags 
from the balloon; whilst in the illustration to the paper on 
Public Dinners we have author, artist, and publishers 
(Messrs. Chapman & Hall). It was at about this time also 

20 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 91 

that Cruikshank drew the portrait of Boz which is well known 
to Dickensians. It is said that this was drawn on the spur 
of the moment at a meeting of the Hook and Eye Club. 

For Oliver Twist as it ran through "Bentley's Miscellany" 
Cruikshank did twenty-four etchings, and when the book was 
published in ten monthly parts in 1846 he designed the 
wrapper. 

Here is the place to refer to Cruikshank's extraordinary 
claim that he was the real author of Oliver Twist. It was 
Shelton Mackenzie who first gave publicity to the claim in 
his Life to Dickens, published in America, shortly after the 
novelist's death. He said that Cruikshank made the asser- 
tion to him in 1847. Forster, in the first volume of his Life 
of Dickens, gave it the lie direct, whereupon the artist wrote 
a letter to "The Times" in which he said : 

" When 'Bentley's Miscellany' was started, it was ar- 
ranged that Mr. Dickens should write a serial in it, and 
which was to be illustrated by me ; and in a conversation 
with him as to what the subject should be for the first 
serial, I suggested to Mr. Dickens that he should write 
the life of a London boy, and strongly advised him to 
do this, assuring him that I would furnish him with 
the subject and supply him with all the characters, 
which my large experience of London life would enable 
me to do." 

And then, after retelling Shelton Mackenzie's circumstan- 
tial story, he said: "Without going any further, I think it 
will be allowed from what I have stated that I am the origi- 
nator of Oliver Twist, and that all the principal characters 
are mine." Supposing it to have been true, there was no 
reason why Cruikshank should not have been given the full 
credit of having suggested the general outline of the plot, 
and provided the ideas for the leading characters. Shake- 
speare did not invent all his plots. But it was not true, and 
Forster was able to prove it. He published in facsimile the 
following letter of Dickens's, written to the artist in 1838: 

"My dear Cuuikshaik, 

"I returned suddenly to town yesterday after- 
noon to look at the latter pages of Oliver Twist before 



22 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

it was delivered to the booksellers, when / saw the 
majority of tlie 'plates in the last volume for tlie first 
time. 1 

"With reference to the last one — Rose Maylie and 
Oliver — without entering into the question of great 
haste or any other cause which may have led to its being 
what it is — I am quite sure there can be little difference 
of opinion between us with respect to the result. May 
I ask you whether you will ob j ect to designing this plate 
afresh and doing so at once, in order that as few im- 
pressions as possible of the present one may go forth? 

"I feel confident you know me too well to feel hurt 
by this inquiry, and with equal confidence in you, I have 
lost no time in preferring it." 

And, as all the world knows, the plate was designed afresh. 
And yet in a pamphlet entitled "The Artist and the Author," 
which Cruikshank published in 1872, he had the effrontery to 
say: 

". . . I, the artist, suggested to the author of those 
works the original idea, or subject, for them to write 
out — furnishing, at the same time, the principal char- 
acters and the scenes. And then, as the tale had to be 
produced in monthly parts, the writer, or author, and 
the artist, had every month to arrange and settle what 
scenes, or subjects, and characters were to be intro- 
duced, and the author had to weave in such scenes as I 
wished to represent." 

If further evidence had been wanted of the falsity of this 
claim, it was provided in an article which appeared in the 
"Strand Magazine" in August 1897, on "Some Unpublished 
Sketches by George Cruikshank." One of these sketches rep- 
resented Bill Sikes in the condemned cell, the burglar being 
depicted in practically the identical attitude in which Fagin 
appears in the famous illustration. And yet, according to 
Shelton Mackenzie, it was the drawing of Fagin in the con- 
demned cell which first attracted Dickens. Mackenzie wrote 

i These italics are my own. 




1 




GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 23 

that Cruikshank told him that Dickens dropped in at his 
studio one day and ferreted out a bundle of drawings. "When 
he came to that one, which represents Fagin in the condemned 
cell, he silently studied it for half an hour." This unfinished 
sketch effectually disposes of that statement. 

And yet the artist persisted in it, and in a speech at a 
temperance meeting in Manchester in 1874 he reiterated the 
whole story. His worst enemies never accused him of being a 
rogue. There can be no doubt but that he really had brought 
himself to believe this monstrous story. Dickens had touched 
him on a sore spot several times, also. The novelist had been 
one of his most doughty opponents on the teetotal question, 
and it is conceivable that he had hurt the artist's dignity 
in another way. That is to say, I think it is highly prob- 
able that Dickens had rather "cold shouldered" him in the 
last twenty years of his life. But this is not enough, for 
Cruikshank also claimed to have been the practical author 
of several of Harrison Ainsworth's novels. Indeed he claimed 
almost as much for himself as the less reasoning Baconians 
claim for their hero. In very truth, there can be no doubt 
but that his mind was none too well balanced in his old age. 

In the Manchester speech to which I have referred, Cruik- 
shank remarked that Dickens was a great enemy of teetotal 
doctrines, and that he called its advocates "Old Hogs." As 
a matter of fact, he called them "Whole Hogs," and in 
Household Words, August 23, 1851, he had an article with 
that title, in which he put it to those who listened to these 
people 

"whether they have any experience or knowledge of a 
good cause that was ever promoted by such bad means? 
Whether they ever heard of an association of people, 
deliberately, by their chosen vessels, throwing overboard 
every effort but their own, made for the amelioration 
of the conditions of men, unscrupulously villifying all 
other labourers in the vineyard; calumniously setting 
down as aiders and abettors of an odious vice which 
they know to be held in general abhorrence, and con- 
signed to general shame, the great compact mass of the 
community — of its intelligence, of its morality, of its 
earnest endeavour after better things? If, upon con- 



24 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

sideration, they know of no such other case, then the 
inquiry will perhaps occur to them, whether, in support- 
ing a so-conducted cause they really be upholders of 
Temperance, dealing with words, which should be the 
signs for Truth, according to the truth that is in them?" 

Two years later Dickens had another tilt, and this time at 
Cruikshank personally. This took the form of an article 
entitled Frauds on the Fairies, which also appeared in House- 
hold Words. Cruikshank had rewritten certain fairy tales as 
Temperance tracts, and Dickens resented such "frauds on the 
fairies." 

He satirised it with the story of Cinderella " 'edited' by 
one of these gentlemen doing a good stroke of business and 
having a rather extensive mission." It was excellent, and 
perfectly legitimate criticism, but Cruikshank did not like 
it, and he replied in his magazine with "A letter from Hop-o'- 
my-thumb to Charles Dickens, Esq." But the blow had gone 
home, and his "Fairy Library" did not last long. 

1 It should be added that in 1848 Dickens wrote a criticism 
of the artist's series of plates, "The Drunkard's Children," 
the sequel to "The Bottle." The criticism, which appeared 
in "The Examiner," opened with "a few words by way of 
gentle protest" : 

"Few men have a better right to erect themselves into 
teachers of the people than Mr. George Cruikshank. 
Few men have observed the people as he has done, or 
know them better; few are more earnestly and honestly 
disposed to teach them for their good; and there are 
very few artists, in England or abroad, who can ap- 
proach him in his peculiar and remarkable power. But 
this teaching, at last, must be fairly conducted. It must 
not be all on one side. When Mr. Cruikshank shows us, 
and shows us so forcibly and vigorously, that side of 
the metal on which the people in their crimes and faults 
are stamped, he is bound to help us to a glance at that 
other side on which the government that forms the 
people, with all its faults and vices, is no less plainly 
impressed. Drunkenness, as a national horror, is the 
effect of many causes. ... It would be as sound philos- 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 25 

ophy to issue a series of plates under the title of the 
Physic Bottle, or the Saline Mixture, and, tracing the 
history of typhus fever by such means, to refer it all 
to the gin-shop, as it is to refer Drunkenness there and 
to stop there. Drunkenness does not begin there. . . . 
The hero of the bottle, and father of these children, 
lived in undoubted comfort and good esteem until he 
was some five-and-thirty years of age, when, happening 
unluckily to have a goose for dinner one day ... he 
jocularly sent out for a bottle of gin and persuaded 
his wife ... to take a little drop, after the stuffing, 
from which moment the family never left off drinking 
gin, and rushed downhill to destruction very fast. Enter- 
taining the highest respect for Mr. Cruikshank's great 
genius, and no less respect for his motives in these 
publications, we deem it right, on the appearance of a 
sequel to 'The Bottle,' to protest against this." 

Cruikshank, extremist that he was, could hardly have felt 
very friendly toward Dickens, in view of these numerous lusty 
blows that the latter dealt him. 

In addition to Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist, Cruik- 
shank illustrated The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, and the 
Mudfrog Papers; whilst he also did an etching for The 
Lamplighter's Story, which was Dickens's contribution to 
"The Pic-nic Papers," published for the benefit of Macrone's 
widow. He also illustrated the Life of Grimaldi, which 
Dickens edited. Thus all his artistic relations with Dickens 
were confined to the latter's very earliest years of fame. But 
in those early years the pair met prett} r often, and they often 
dined at each other's house. Cruikshank formed one of the 
company at the Greenwich dinner at which Dickens's friends 
welcomed him home from America in 1842 — the dinner of 
which the novelist wrote to Prof. Felton as follows : "I wish 
you had been at Greenwich the other day, when a party of 
friends gave me a private dinner ; public ones I have refused. 

C was perfectly wild at the reunion, and after singing 

all manner of marine songs, wound up the entertainment by 
coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton of mine, 
ow his head, to the mingled delight and indignation of the 
metropolitan police. We were very jovial, indeed; and I 



26 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

assure you that I drank your health with fearful vigour and 
energy." There was only one member of the company on 
that occasion whose name began with C. "We were very 
jovial." No doubt they were, but whilst Dickens could enjoy 
this sort of thing once in a while, he did not care about it 
too frequently. Cruikshank did in those days. 

It only remains to be noted that the artist was associated 
with the early amateur dramatic performances. He took 
Stanfield's place in the performances at Miss Kelly's theatre 
in 1845, and he again had a part in the performances in aid 
of Leigh Hunt and John Poole in 1847. But he was a very 
ordinary actor. Chosen as a stop-gap, he could not be got 
rid of afterwards. For we find Dickens writing to Forster: 
"I make a desperate effort to get C. to give up his part. 
Yet in spite of all the trouble he gives me I am sorry for 
him, he is so evidently hurt by his own sense of not doing 
well. He clutched the part, however, tenaciously ; and three 
weary times we dragged through it last night." 

We find Cruikshank prominently mentioned in the bur- 
lesque account of the tour of 1847, supposed to have been 
written by Mrs. Gamp, which Forster prints. 

Dickens intended that the artist members of the company 
should illustrate this account of the trip, but they backed 
out for some unexplained reason, and the thing was never 
carried through. But one drawing has been preserved. It 
is by Cruikshank, and was published in the "Strand Maga- 
zine" for August 1897. It illustrates the scene in which he 
himself is supposed to be addressing Mrs. Gamp, and depicts 
him raising his hat in the most polite manner. 



CHAPTER V 

WILLIAM CHAELES MACREADY 

We have seen that Dickens met Forster at Christmas 
1836. Six months later Forster gave his new friend one of 
the greatest joys of his life. Under date June 16, 1837, 
William Charles Macready records in his diary : "Forster * 
came into my room with a gentleman whom he introduced 
as Dickens, alias Boz. I was glad to see him." And the 
Editor of the Diary truthfully comments: "Thus began a 
friendship of the happiest and most genial description that 
was only terminated by Dickens's death, thirty-three years 
afterward." 

And the fact is certainly worthy of note. One needs only 
to read Macready's Diary to know that he was not the 
easiest man in the world to get on with. Browning described 
him as one of the most admirable and fascinating characters 
he had ever known, and Sala's description of him as "high- 
minded, generous, just," was perfectly accurate, but his quick 
and violent temper tried the patience of his friends very 
often. With nearly every one of them he quarrelled at some 
time or another, and most of them come in for emphatic refer- 
ence in his Diary. But never Dickens. He never had a mis- 
word with his friend, who is never referred to but in terms 
of affection. The novelist's frankness, geniality, and gene- 
rosity seem to have exercised their spell over him always. 
And Dickens, on the other hand, saw beneath the sometimes 
forbidding exterior of his friend that "high-minded, generous, 
just spirit" which was the real man. As Forster says: "No 
swifter or surer perception than Dickens's for what was solid 
and beautiful in character; he rated it higher than intel- 
lectual effort, and the same lofty place, first in his affection 

1 Forster and Macready had been acquainted since 1833, when they had 
been introduced to each other at Edmund Kean's funeral. 

27 



28 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

and respect, would have been Macready's" if he had not 
been the greatest of actors. 

For each other as artist as well as man they had the high- 
est admiration. "Wonderful Dickens!" exclaims Macready 
very often. "He is a great genius !" is another entry. "As 
a great indulgence and enjoyment, walked out to call on 
Dickens," he writes in another place; and when one of 
Dickens's books is unkindly reviewed in "The Times" we 
find him commenting : "Read the paper, in which was a most 
savage attack on Dickens and his last book — The Cricket — 
that looks to me like a heavy and remorseless blow of an 
enemy determined to disable his antagonist by striking to 
maim him or kill if he can, and so render his hostility power- 
less. 1 I was sorry to see in a newspaper so powerful as 
'The Times' an attack so ungenerous, so unworthy of itself. 
. . . Alas ! for my poor dear friend Dickens !" In 1847 
he records how, on going to see Dickens after reading Num- 
ber 5 of Dombey, "I could not speak to him for sobs. It 
is indeed most beautiful; it is true genius" and in October 
1850, he writes : "Purchased two last numbers of Copper- 
field and read parts of each. Was very much affected and 
very much pleased with them. His genius is very great." 

That Dickens had an equally high opinion of Macready's 
abilities as an actor is shown by the notices he wrote for the 
"Examiner" of his friend's performances of Lear and Bene- 
dict — performances which he placed on the highest pinnacle, 
whilst in many of his letters are to be found eulogies of Mac- 
ready's acting. 

It would be possible to give many quotations showing the 
regard the two men had for each other entirely apart from 
their respective arts. From that first meeting in 1837 there 
sprang up a heart-whole affection. From boyhood Dickens 
had adored Macready, and when at last he achieved success 
and was able to meet the object of his idolatry on level 
terms, none of his ideals was destroyed. The friendship which 
was to last unbroken, without a cloud to obscure its sun- 
shine, was formed at once. Within a month Dickens was 
revealing to Macready his plan for a comedy that he desired 
to write for him. The suggestion, which arose out of 

• The reference is to the forthcoming publication of the "Daily News." 



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY 29 

Dickens's desire to assist his friend's Covent Garden enter- 
prise, was taken up seriously, and towards the end of 1838 
he wrote to Macreadj: "I have not seen you for the past 
week, because I hoped when we next met to bring The Lamp- 
lighter in my hand. It would have been finished by this 
time, but I found myself compelled to set to work first at 
Nickleby. ... I am afraid to name any particular day, but 
I pledge myself that you shall have it this month." It is 
obvious that this letter, which is not dated, is wrongly placed 
in the collection of Dickens's "Letters." It follows a letter 
dated December 12, but it must have been written earlier 
than that, for on December 5 Macready has this entry in his 
Diary: "Dickens brought me his farce, which he read to me. 
The dialogue is very good, full of point, but I am not sure 
about the meagreness of the plot. He reads as well as an 
experienced actor would — he is a surprising man." Six days 
later there is this entry: "Dickens came with Forster and 
read his farce. There was manifest disappointment. It went 
flatly; a few ready laughs, but generally an even smile, 
broken in upon by the horse-laugh of Forster, the most in- 
discreet friend that ever allied himself to any person. . . . 
It was agreed that it should be put into rehearsal, and, when 
nearly ready, should be seen and judged of by Dickens." On 
the next day, however, Macready records that the farce is 
to be withdrawn, and a day or two later we have this entry: 
"Wrote to Bulwer, and to Dickens about his farce, explain- 
ing to him my motive for wishing to withdraw it and my 
great obligation to him. He returned me an answer which 
is an honour to him. How truly delightful it is to meet with 
high-minded and warm-hearted men. Dickens and Bulwer 
have been certainly to me noble specimens of human nature." 
And so the proposal fell through. But Dickens was still 
anxious to serve his friend if possible. He had sent Macready 
a copy of The Strange Gentleman, which Harley had pro- 
duced at Drury Lane a year or two before, thinking it 
"barely possible you might like to try it." "Believe me," 
he added, "if I had as much time as I have inclination, I 
would write on and on, farce after farce, and comedy after 
comedy, until I wrote you something that would run. You 
do me justice when you give me credit for good intentions, 
but the extent of my goodwill and strong and warm interest 



30 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

in you personally and your great undertaking, you cannot 
fathom nor express." There is no further reference to this 
play in this connection. Macready certainly never acted in 
it. A month earlier Dickens had suggested that his friend 
might appear in a version of Oliver Twist, but Macready 's 
comment was: "Nothing can be kinder than this generous 
intention of Dickens, but I fear it is not acceptable." He 
was convinced that the book was utterly impracticable for 
any dramatic purpose. 

Frequent were the meetings between the two friends in 
these early days, and on November 18, 1837, Macready was 
one of the company that gathered at the Prince of Wales 
Tavern to celebrate the completion of Pickwick. A fort- 
night later Macready records the gift to him by Dickens of a 
copy of the book. 

In 1839 — on March 30 — Dickens presided at a dinner 
given in honour of Macready by the members of the Shake- 
speare Club, of which they were both members, together with 
Thackeray, Talfourd, Maclise, Jerrold, Stanfield, etc., and 
Macready tells us that the novelist's "speech in proposing 
my health was most earnest, eloquent, and touching. It 
took a review of my enterprise at Covent Garden, and 
summed up with an eulogy on myself that quite overpowered 
me. ... I rose to propose Dickens's health, and spoke my 
sincere opinion of him as the highest eulogy, alluding to the 
verisimilitude of his characters. I said that I should not be 
surprised at receiving the offer of an engagement from 
Crummies for the next vacation." Later in the same year 
Dickens was one of the speakers at a public banquet given 
in honour of Macready on the occasion of the termination 
of his Covent Garden management. 

When the announcement of the actor's impending retire- 
ment from Covent Garden was made, Dickens wrote him the 
following delightful letter: 

"I ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication, 
but I am . . . for my own sake and for the sake of 
thousands who may now go and whistle for a theatre — 
at least, such a theatre as you gave them ; and I do now 
in my heart believe that for a long and dreary time 
that exquisite delight has passed away. If I may jest 




William Charles Macready 



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY 31 

with my misfortunes, and quote the Portsmouth critic 
of Mr. Crummles's company, I say that, 'As an exqui- 
site embodiment of the poet's visions and a realisation 
of human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our 
dreary moments, and laying open a new magic world 
before the mental eye, the drama is gone — perfectly 
gone.' 

"With the same perverse and unaccountable feeling 
which causes a broken-hearted man at a dear friend's 
funeral to see something irresistibly comical in a red- 
nosed or one-eyed undertaker, I receive your communi- 
cation with ghostly facetiousness ; though on a moment's 
reflection I find better cause for consolation in the hope 
that, relieved from your most trying and painful duties, 
you will now have leisure to return to pursuits more 
congenial to your mind, and to move more easily and 
pleasantly among your friends. In the long catalogue 
of the latter there is not one prouder of the name, or 
more grateful for the store of delightful recollections 
you have enabled him to heap up from boyhood, 
than ..." 

And he thus referred to the event in a letter to Lam an 
Blanchard: "Macready has, as Talfourd remarked in one of 
his speeches, 'cast a new grace round joy and gladness, and 
rendered mirth more holy !' Therefore we are preparing 
crowns and wreaths here to shower upon the stage when that 
sad curtain falls and kivers up Shakespeare for years to 
come. I try to make a joke of it, but, upon my word, when 
the night comes, I verily believe I shall cry." 

Many years afterwards Dickens paid (in All the Year 
Round, 1869), a tribute to Macready's Covent Garden man- 
agement in the following words: 

"It is a fact beyond all possibility of question that 
Mr. Macready, in assuming the management of Covent 
Garden Theatre in 1837, did instantly set himself, re- 
gardless of precedent and custom down to that hour 
obtaining, rigidly to suppress this shameful thing, 1 and 

1 "The outrage upon decency which the lobbies and upper-boxes of even 
our best Theatres habitually paraded within the last twenty or thirty years." 



32 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

did rigidly suppress and crush it during his whole man- 
agement of that theatre, and during his whole subse- 
quent management of Drury Lane. That he did so, as 
certainly without favour as without fear; that he did 
so, against his own immediate interests; that he did so, 
against vexations and oppositions which might have 
cooled the ardour of a less earnest man, or a less de- 
voted artist, can be better known to no one than the 
writer of the present words, whose name stands at the 
head of these pages." 

Between the dates of the two dinners referred to, Dickens 
had stood godfather to Macready's son, Henry. "One to be 
proud of," comments the father in his Diary. Dickens's 
acceptance of the invitation to undertake the trust was as 
follows: "I feel more true and cordial pleasure than I can 
express to you in the request you have made. Anything 
which can serve to commemorate our friendship, and to keep 
the recollection of it alive among our children is, believe me, 
and ever will be, most deeply prized by me. I accept the 
office with hearty and fervent satisfaction ; and, to render this 
pleasant bond between us the more complete, I must solicit 
you to become godfather to the last and final branch of a 
genteel small family of three which I am told may be looked 
for in that auspicious month when Lord Mayors are born 
and guys prevail." The invitation was accepted, the ex- 
pected branch — but not the "last and final" — arrived in 
October, and on August 25, 1840, Kate Macready Dickens — 
now Mrs. Perugini — was christened. 

In 1839 Dickens gave Macready another proof of the re- 
gard in which he held him by dedicating Nicholas Nickleby 
to him in the following terms: "To W. C. Macready, Esq., 
the following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admi- 
ration and regard, by his friend, the Author." The com- 
pletion of the book was celebrated by a dinner held at the 
Albion, Aldersgate Street, at which Macready proposed the 
toast of the evening, saying that the declaration of Dickens 
in his dedication was a tangible manifestation to him that 
he was not wholly valueless, and that the friendship of such 
a man increased his self-respect. 

Three weeks later Macready received from Boz a copy 



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY 33 

of the book with this letter • "The book, the whole book, and 
nothing but the book . . . has arrived at last, and is for- 
warded herewith. The red represents my blushes at its gor- 
geous dress; the gilding, all those bright professions which 
I do not make to you; and the book itself, my whole heart 
for twenty months, which should be yours for so short a 
term, as you have it always." Macready's comment in his 
Diary is: "Returned home, found a parcel with a note from 
Dickens, and a presentation copy of Nickleby. What a dear 
fellow he is !" 

Boz had no more assiduous and no more admiring reader 
than this friend, who was one of the many to plead with 
him to allow Little Nell to live. "Asked Dickens to spare 
the life of Nell in his story, and observed that he was cruel. 
He blushed, and men who blush are said to be proud or cruel. 

He is not proud, and therefore , or, as Dickens added, 

the axiom is false." The very next entry perhaps explains 
why Dickens blushed. Nell was already dead. "Found at 
home notes from Ransom, and one from Dickens with an 
onward number of Master Humphrey's Clock. I saw one 
print in it of the dear dead child that gave a dead chill 
through my blood. I dread to read it, but I must get it 
over. I have read the two numbers. I never have read 
printed words that gave me so much pain. I could not weep 
for some time. Sensation, sufferings have returned to me, 
that are terrible to awaken. It is real to me ; I cannot criti- 
cise it." Who can doubt but that that blush was caused 
by the thought that the death of Nell would reawaken the 
actor's recent grief! 

Macready showed his friendship for Dickens when, in 1841, 
the latter, contemplating a visit to America, was perplexed 
as to what arrangements to make for the care of his children 
during his absence. Macready relieved him of his anxiety 
by offering to undertake the responsibility. The offer was 
gratefully accepted, and the little ones spent their days at 
the actor's house whilst their father travelled in the Western 
world. How much Dickens appreciated Macready's kindness 
is shown, not only by his letters to him, but by his letters 
to Forster and others. During his journey from Pittsburg 
to Cincinnati, for instance, he wrote to the actor : "God bless 
you, my dearest friend, a hundred times, God bless you! I 



34 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

will not thank you (how can I thank you!) for your care 
of our dear children, but I will ever be, heart and soul, your 
faithful friend." And he was. 

He sailed on January 4, and on the 1st he said "Fare- 
well" to Macready. "Dear Dickens called to shake hands 
with me. My heart was quite full; it is much to me to lose 
the presence of a friend who really loves me. He said there 
was no one whom he felt such pain in saying good-bye to — 
God bless him." Some of the most interesting of his Amer- 
ican letters were written to Macready, and when he returned 
to England Macready was among the first whom he hastened 
to greet. "I was lying on my sofa when a person entered 
abruptly whom I glanced at as Forster? — no; Jonathan 
Bucknill? — no. Why, who was it but dear Dickens, holding 
me in his arms in a transport of joy, God bless him!" 

In December 1842 Macready spoke Dickens's Prologue 
to J. Westland Marston's new play, "The Patrician's 
Daughter," and, according to his own account, spoke it "tol- 
erably well." A little less than a year later he set out on 
his first American tour. Prior to his departure he was 
entertained to dinner at the Star and Garter, Richmond, 
and Dickens, who was the prime organiser of the function, 
took the chair. He was also made the recipient of a testi- 
monial at Willis's Rooms. 

On the advice of Captain Marryat, Dickens did not go to 
see his friend off for the States, the fear — which Dickens 
shared — being that the Nickleby dedication would damage 
Macready. America was angry with the author of American 
Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit, and "if I were to go on board 
with him," he wrote to Forster, "I have not the least doubt 
that the fact would be placarded all over New York before 
he had shaved himself in Boston. And that there are thou- 
sands of men in America who would pick a quarrel with him 
on the mere statement of his being my friend I have no more 
doubt than I have of my existence." During his absence 
Macready received from Dickens a copy of the Carol — "a 
little book I published on the 17th of December, and which 
has been a most prodigious success — the greatest, I think 
I have ever achieved. It pleases me to think that it will 
bring you home for an hour or two, and I long to hear you 
have read it on some quiet morning." 



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY 35 

When Macready returned to England Dickens was in 
Italy. None the less, he was greeted by the following letter 
which he found awaiting him: "My very dear Macready, — 
My whole heart is with you 'at home.' I have not felt so 
far off as I do now, when I think of you there and cannot 
hold you in my arms. This is only a shake of the hand. I 
couldn't say much to you if I were to greet you. Nor can 
I write much when I think of you safe and sound — happy 
after all your wanderings. My dear fellow, God bless you 
twenty thousand times; happiness and joy be with you. I 
hope to see you soon. If I should be so unfortunate as to 
miss you in London, I will fall on you with a swoop of love 
in Paris. . . . Again, and again, and again, my own true 
friend, God bless you !" 

They met in Paris, and Macready writes in December 
1844: "Dickens dined with us, and left us at half-past five, 
taking with him the last pleasant day I expect to pass in 
Paris." Macready had gone to the French capital to fulfil 
an engagement, and Dickens met him there on his way back 
to Genoa from London, whence he had gone to give that 
memorable reading of The Chimes at Forster's chambers. 
Macready was not present at that reading, but on the night 
before Dickens read the book to him, and in a letter to his 
wife the novelist wrote: "If you had seen Macready last 
night, undisguisedly sobbing and crying on the sofa as I 
read, you would have felt, as I did, what a thing it is to 
have power." 

In the following year Dickens and his friends gave the 
first of that memorable series of amateur theatricals, play- 
ing "Every Man in His Humour" at Miss Kelly's theatre in 
Dean Street in September, and repeating that play, together 
with "The Elder Brother," at the same theatre in December. 
It is not surprising that Macready's help and advice were 
much sought after by the amateur actors. Nor need we be 
surprised if the amateurs irritated him occasionally. "Called 
on Forster," he records, "with whom I found Dickens, and 
gave them the best directions I could to two unskilled men, 
how to manage their encounter in the play of 'The Elder 
Brother.' " And again : "Went out with Edward to call on 
Forster. Found Dickens and his tailor at his chambers, he 
encased in his doublet and hose. It is quite ludicrous the 



36 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

fuss which the actors make about this play ! — hut I was sorry 
to hear of intemperate language between them, which should 
neither have been given or received as it was." 

In 1851 Macrcady said farewell to the stage, and on the 
day after he had made his last appearance he received a 
letter from his friend which contained the following: 

"I cannot forbear a word about last night. I think 
I have told you sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, 
when I was a mere boy, I was one of your faithful and 
devoted adherents in the pit — I believe as true a mem- 
ber of that true host of followers as it has ever boasted. 
As I improved myself, and was improved by favouring 
circumstances in mind and fortune, I only became the 
more earnest (if it were possible) in my study of you. 
No light portion of my life arose before me when the 
quiet vision to which I am beholden, in I don't know 
how great a degree, or for how much — who does? — 
faded from my bodily eyes last night. And if I were to 
try to tell }'ou what I felt — of regret of its being past 
for ever, and of joy in the thought that you could have 
taken your leave of me but in God's own time — I 
should only blot this paper with something that would 
certainly not be in ink, and give very faint expressions 
to very strong emotions. What is all this in writing? 
It is only some sort of relief to my full heart, and 
shows very little of it to you; but that's something, 
so I let it go." 

The actor went to live at Sherborne, and there he lived 
a life of quiet and dullness. As the Editor of his Diary 
says : "On the whole, the period of his residence at Sherborne 
must have been a depressing one, and he looms out of its 
greyness for the most part a brooding, sombre, figure much 
engrossed with family cares, and more than once bowed down 
by a fresh stroke of bitter affliction." And Dickens, in a 
letter to Forster, struck a similar note. Macready visited 
him in Paris in 1857, and after his return the novelist wrote 
to Forster: "It fills me with pity to think of him away in 
that lonely Sherborne place. I have always felt of myself 
that I must, please God, die in harness, but I have never 



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY 37 

felt it more strongly than in looking at and thinking of 
him." It was in those days that Dickens proved the sincerity 
of those professions of friendship which, as we have seen, 
Le had made in his letters through the years that had passed. 
Lady Pollock bears testimony to this. "When the weight 
of time and sorrow pressed him down, Dickens was his most 
frequent visitor. He cheered him with narratives of bygone 
days; he poured some of his own abundant warmth into his 
heart; he led him into new channels of thought; he gave 
readings to rouse his interest; he waked up in him again by 
his vivid descriptions, his sense of humour; he conjured back 
his smile and his laugh — Charles Dickens was and is to me 
the ideal of friendship." Could any man wish to have a 
better epitaph than that? 

In 1859, however, Macready removed from Sherborne to 
Cheltenham, where he spent the remaining years of his life. 
There Dickens visited him in January, 1862, and his old 
friend came to hear him read. In a letter to Miss Hogarth, 
Dickens relates the effect of the Copperfield reading on Mac- 
ready. "When I got home ... I found him quite unable 
to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old jaw 
all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed) like Jackson's 
picture of him. And when I said something light about it 
he returned : 'No — er — Dickens ! I swear to Heaven that as 
a piece of passion and playfulness — er — indescribably mixed 
up together, it does — er — no, really, Dickens — amaze me as 
profoundly as it moves me. But as a piece of art — and 

you know — er — that I — no, Dickens ! By ! have seen 

the best art in a great time — it is incomprehensible to me. 
How is it got at? — er — how is it done? — er — how one man 
can — well! It lays me on my — er — back, and it is of no 
use talking about it !' With which he put his hand upon 
my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and I felt 
as if I were doing somebody to his Werner." 

Seven years later Dickens again visited Cheltenham, and 
gave a special reading of the murder scene from Oliver Twist 
for the benefit of his friend — now a feeble old man. Its effect 
on Macready has been told by many, but by none better 
than by Dolby. The latter took him to Dickens's room at 
the conclusion of the reading, and there, after being seated 
on the sofa, he said: "You remember my best days, my dear 



38 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

old boy? — No, that's not it. Well, to make a long story 
short, all I have to say is — two Macbeths!" 

And Dolby has also given us an interesting, if pathetic, 
picture of the old tragedian that same evening, when he 
entertained Dickens at his house. "Dickens was all life and 
vivacity, and when he found his old friend relapsing into 
feebleness and forgetfulness, was equal to the occasion, and 
refreshed his memory by some question about the olden days 
which caused Macready's face to change from its usual sto- 
lidity to an expression of quite vivacious humour." He had 
an idea that in his retirement he was forgotten by the world, 
and Dickens delighted him by telling him that his old harle- 
quin had desired to be remembered to him. Says Dolby: 
"The fact of Smith remembering Macready put the latter in 
such a good humour that he insisted on having another bottle 
of the 'old straw Madeira' . . . brought into the room. 
This being done he cheered up, and proceeded to tell us 
anecdotes of his managerial days. ... In the recital of 
these he seemed to have changed his nature, and, as Dickens 
remarked afterwards, it was difficult to imagine that Mac- 
ready had ever been anything but a low comedian. This little 
incident, told here, can scarcely produce much effect, but the 
vis comica employed by Macready, and the manner in which 
Dickens contrived to enliven his friend by his brief visit — 
and especially the way these stories were extracted from him 
— formed a pantomimic treat not easily to be forgotten." 

This was the last meeting of the two friends. Macready 
outlived Dickens by practically three years. His daughter, 
Kate, it may be noted, was a contributor to Household 
Words. 



CHAPTER VI 



ROBERT BROWNING 



We are told by the Editors of The Letters of Charles 
Dickens that Robert Browning was a dear and valued friend 
of the novelist. That is undoubtedly true, and therefore it 
is a pity that so little record of their friendship exists. Their 
friendship was inevitable, of course, for, with the sole excep- 
tion of Dickens, Browning was Forster's greatest friend, and 
he was the friend of Macready too. And a friendship be- 
tween two such men as Dickens and Browning was very 
natural. True, one was a cultured man and the other had 
no learning at all, but Browning was no ponderous pedant, 
and had none of the eccentricities or posings that are too 
commonly associated with poets. Both men were optimists. 
Both were sure that "God's in His heaven, All's right with 
the world," and preached that gospel untiringly. Both loved 
their fellow-men; both believed in and taught the gospel of 
love, and faith, and hope. I have seen no reference to the 
poet's opinions of Dickens's works, but we know that Dickens 
appreciated the worth of Browning's work from the begin- 
ning. He wrote "Blot on the 'scutcheon" in manuscript in 
1842, Forster having privately passed it on to him; and this 
is what he wrote: 

"Browning's play has thrown me into a perfect pas- 
sion of sorrow. To say there is anything in its subject 
save what is lovely, true, deeply affecting, full of the 
best emotion, the most earnest feeling, and the most true 
and tender source of interest, is to say that there is 
no light in the sun, and no heat in the blood. It is 
full of genius, natural and great thoughts, profound 
and yet simple and beautiful in its vigour. I know 
nothing that is so affecting, nothing in any books I have 
ever read, as Mildred's recurrence to that 'I was so 

39 



40 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

young — I had no mother.' I know no love like it, no 
passion like it, no moulding of a splendid thing after 
its conception, like it. And I swear it is a tragedy 
that must be played; and must be played, moreover, 
by Macready. There are some things I would have 
changed if I could (they are very slight, mostly broken 
lines), and I assuredly would have the old servant begin 
his tale upon the scene; and be taken by the throat, 
or drawn upon, by his master, in its commencement. 
But the tragedy I never shall forget, or less vividly re- 
member than I do now. And if you tell Browning that 
I have seen it, tell him that I believe from my soul 
there is no man living (and not many dead) who could 
produce such a work." 

Peculiar interest attaches to this letter. It never saw the 
light of day — Browning never knew of its existence, until 
it was published in Forster's Life of Dickens. The play was 
produced by Macready in 1843, and there was unpleasant- 
ness between the actor and the author over its production. 
It was a failure. In 1884 Browning wrote an account of the 
whole business in a letter to Mr. Hill, then Editor of the 
"Daily News." "Macready," he wrote, "accepted the play 
'at the instigation' of nobody — and Charles Dickens was not 
in England when he did so : it was read to him after his 
return, by Forster — and the glowing letter which contains 
his opinion of it, although directed by him to be shown to 
myself, was never heard of nor seen by me till printed in 
Forster's book some thirty years after." 

Now, Dickens returned from America in July 1842: that 
letter to Forster was written in the last week of November. 
Browning says that the play was accepted by Macready while 
he was still at the Haymarket theatre, to be produced at 
Drury Lane later on. He adds: "When the Drury Lane 
season began, Macready informed me that he should act the 
play when he had brought out two others — 'The Patrician's 
Daughter,' and 'Plighted Troth'; having done so, he wrote 
to me that the former had been unsuccessful in money draw- 
ing, and the latter had 'smashed his arrangements alto- 
gether'; but he would still produce my play." Browning 
writing forty years later, suggests that this was a hint from 



ROBERT BROWNING 41 

Macready that he would like to be relieved from his under- 
taking, but that he did not appreciate it at the time. He 
then goes on to suggest unmistakably that Macready set him- 
self to fulfil his undertaking in the letter only, doing all he 
could to discourage the author with a view to disgusting him 
into withdrawing it. That is clearly the only interpretation 
of the poet's letter. 

Why did Forster, the friend of Browning, Macready, and 
Dickens, withhold the novelist's letter; with its passionate 
appreciation of the play? The poet's biographer, Mrs. 
Sutherland Orr, says that he felt it a just cause of bitter- 
ness that the letter, which "was clearly written to Mr. For- 
ster in order that it might be seen, was withheld for thirty 
years from his knowledge, and that of the public whose 
judgment it might so largely have influenced." Not unnat- 
urally. The publication of the letter would have been balm 
to the poet in those days when he was struggling for recog- 
nition ; at a time when he was being so much worried over 
the production of the play it would have meant much to him 
indeed. Then why did Forster, his closest friend, withhold 
it? Suppose he was torn by the claims of two friends? We 
know that he apprized Browning's genius at its true value, 
that he was the first critic of real standing to do so, and to 
foresee the poet's greatness. Suppose he felt that by with- 
holding the letter he would be doing the one friend — Mac- 
ready — an immediate substantial service, and doing the other 
no lasting harm, knowing that the actor had to "make good" 
in the present, and that the poet was certain of greatness 
notwithstanding a present disappointment? Suppose he laid 
this point of view before Dickens, and the latter said : "Very 
well; but publish the letter some day, to show to the world 
that I recognised a genius when I saw him"? On any other 
grounds than these Forster's conduct is simply inexplicable. 
Dickens must have acquiesced, for he and Browning were 
friends till the end of his life, and but for some reason 
for silence, the matter must have cropped up in the c#urse 
of an intimacy extending over thirty years. 



CHAPTER VII 

"phiz" 

At the time that Cruikshank was illustrating Sketches by 
Box a much younger artist was illustrating another book by 
the same author. Sunday Under Three Heads was published 
in the same year, and a young artist of promise was engaged 
to do the illustrations. He had not met the author, but was 
destined soon to do so, and to win immortality through an 
almost lifelong association with him. How that came about 
does not need to be retold in detail. The first number of 
Pickwick appeared on March 31, 1836. Immediately after- 
wards the artist, Seymour, committed suicide. R. W. Buss 
took his place, and after two more numbers he was deemed 
unsatisfactor} r , and Hablot Knight Browne commenced an 
association with Dickens that was to last for practically a 
quarter of a century. Browne was barely twenty-one years 
old, but three years previously he had received a silver medal 
from the Society of Arts for a large engraving, "John Gil- 
pin's Ride." Buss afterwards stated that at this time 
Browne was "quite incapable of 'biting-in' and finishing his 
own designs." This, I believe, is quite true; it is confirmed, 
indeed, by Phiz's biographer, Mr. David Croal Thomson; 
but the artist was able to rely upon the assistance of his 
lifelong friend, Robert Young, who was one of the most 
expert engravers in London, in whose hands Phiz's work never 
suffered. 

I think that Buss was not given quite a fair trial, but we 
have to remember, in fairness to Dickens and the publishers, 
that Pickwick was in parlous plight — that at this time it 
was almost a "toss up" whether the work should be persevered 
with or not. Browne had already illustrated a book of 
Dickens's to the author's satisfaction. What more natural 
than that he should say, "Try Browne"? From Dickens's 
standpoint, Phiz was ideal in this way — he was, as one of 

42 



"PHIZ" 43 

his biographers puts it, "a marvel of pliability"; he was 
"amenable to discipline," so to speak. It was sufficient for 
Dickens to say, "I want this done in such and such a way"; 
he could rely upon it being so done. I fancy the relations 
between Dickens and Browne, as author and illustrator, re- 
sembled those of superior and subordinate. If Browne had 
been a man of very strong individuality I doubt if he would 
have illustrated Dickens for twenty-three years. In effect, 
he was content to receive instructions from the novelist and 
to do his best to give satisfaction. 

It is said that Thackeray was the first to inform Browne 
of his good fortune. The story is that when Titmarsh sub- 
mitted his sketches to Boz, the latter informed him that 
Browne had been selected, and that thereupon he hunted out 
the lucky man and congratulated him. It would certainly 
be like Thackeray to do so. Phiz's first published illustration 
to Dickens was the one which "standardised" Sam Wellcr, and 
it appeared in the fourth number of Pickwick, which was 
the number that marked the commencement of the book's 
wondrous success. It was indeed an auspicious beginning. 

It is totally unnecessary to go into details concerning 
Phiz's illustrations to Dickens : all we are concerned with is 
the personal relations between the two men. And I fancy 
we shall be correct if we say that there was a friendliness 
rather than a friendship. Their temperaments were totally 
unlike. Dickens was a man of the world, always at his best 
in company, to whom, indeed, company was as the breath 
of his nostrils ; Browne was a shy retiring man, who almost 
dreaded company. And it was most difficult to persuade 
him to meet a few friends, we are told, and when he did 
accept an invitation, he always tried to seclude himself in 
a corner of the room, or behind a curtain. Mr. Arthur All- 
chin says, "Into the social life of Dickens Browne could 
seldom be drawn," and the artist's son 1 tells us that his 
father "was by nature shy and given to self-effacement, and 
when he became a busy man and had consequently little time 
or opportunity for social amusements, these tendencies in- 
creased till his dread of strangers amounted to a detrimental 
feature in his character." 

1 The late Dr. Edgar Browne, of Liverpool. 



44 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"It became very difficult to make him go anywhere. 
At the beginning of his career he was certainly consid- 
ered a cheerful companion, and took a part, if he found 
himself in congenial company, in any fun that was 
going. . . . But by living so much alone in his study, 
having an innate dislike of push, and a sort of natural 
distrust of strangers, he gradually worked himself up 
until it was difficult to get him to see anybody except 
intimate friends. He did not realise that there must be 
a stage before intimacy." 

It is rather curious that Browne should not have been 
present at the Pickwick dinner. Neither Forster, nor Mac- 
ready, nor Ainsworth includes his name among the names of 
the guests. He was present at the Nicldeby and Clock din- 
ners, however, and I believe he was present at all the subse- 
quent book dinners until his business associations with 
Dickens were severed in 1859. 

Before Pickwick was finished author and artist were on 
such excellent terms that Browne accompanied Dickens and 
his wife to Flanders for a summer holiday in July 1837. In 
January of the following year the two young men made their 
trip to Yorkshire, which may almost be described as his- 
toric, their object being to obtain "local colour" and first- 
hand information for the Dotheboy scenes in NicJwlas Nick- 
leby. In November of the same year, they made another 
excursion together, with the object of securing material for 
the same book, going to Manchester, ostensibly to see the 
inside of a cotton mill, but in reality, as we now know, to see 
the Brothers Grant, who were unconsciously to pose for their 
portraits to the brilliant young novelist, and were to be 
immortalised by him as the Brothers Cheeryble. 1 

The last book that Phiz illustrated for Dickens was A 
Tale of Two Cities. That was in 1859. I can find no evi- 
dence of any quarrel. Mr. Arthur Allchin says: "His 
(Phiz's) reserved nature was becoming intensified as he grew 
older, while upon Dickens began to flow that stream of flat- 
tery and adulation which eventually urged him to break with 
publishers, with assistants, and with tried friends." Quite 

» See chapter iii. 




J&2 Aj^ 




/ ^/z) 



"PHIZ" 45 

respectfully, I beg to state my opinion that this is absurd, 
and grossly unjust to Dickens. The man had his faults 
unquestionably, but that the flattery and adulation of the 
world ever caused him to turn from any friend of earlier 
years, no evidence exists to prove. It is true that Mr. All- 
chin quotes Phiz as saying: "I was about the last of those 
who knew him in early days with whom Dickens fell out, 
and considering the grand people he had around him and 
the compliments he perpetually received, it is a wonder we 
remained friends so long." Phiz may have written this, but 
it would be in a moment of perhaps not unnatural pique. 
I am very sure that this was not his true judgment of 
Dickens. The novelist had been receiving flattery and adu- 
lation, and had moved among the highest in the land, for 
twenty years. If such things were likely to turn his head, 
they would have done so long before 1859. Whatever else 
may be said of Dickens, it cannot be said with any show of 
justification that he was a snob. 

Then Mr. Allchin goes on to make another suggestion. 
This is to the effect that Phiz was dropped because he refused 
to side with Dickens in his domestic troubles: "Browne," 
he says, "persistently refused to express an opinion or to 
interfere, and though Dickens said nothing further at the 
time, the book then in progress, A Tale of Two Cities, was 
the last Browne was commissioned to illustrate." One would 
like to know exactly on what ground the suggestion is based. 
Browne himself seems to have had no definite explanation, 
as witness his letter to his friend Young: 

"By your enclosed, Marcus is no doubt to do 
Dickens. I have been a 'good boy,' I believe — the plates 
are all in hand in good time, so that I don't know 
what's up any more than you do. Dickens probably 
thinks a new hand would give his old puppets a fresh 
look, or perhaps he does not like my illustrating Trol- 
lope neck and neck with him, though, by Jingo ! he need 
fear no rivalry there! Confound all authors and pub- 
lishers, say I; there is no pleasing or satisfying one or 
t'other. I wish I never had anything to do with the 
lot." 



46 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

This letter was so obviously written in a moment of irri- 
tation — at the very time when Phiz knew that he was to be 
dropped — that it cannot be taken seriously. But it does 
prove that, at the time, at any rate, Browne had no idea 
what was the reason for his having been dropped. Years 
afterwards he wrote the following letter to one of his sons, 
referring to A Tale of Two Cities: 

"A rather curious thing happened with this book: 
Watts Phillips, the dramatist, hit upon the very same 
identical plot ; they had evidently both of them been to 
the same source in Pais for their story. Watts's play 
came out with great success with stunning climax at 
about the time of Dickens's sixth number. The public 
saw that they were identically the same story, so Dickens 
shut up at the ninth number instead of going on to 
the eighteenth as usual. All tliis put Dickens out of 
temper, and he squabbled with me amongst others, and 
I never drew another line for him." 

It will be noted that in the letter to Young written at the 
time, Phiz makes no mention of any squabble. I have been 
unable to find any confirmation of the statement that Dickens 
reduced the length of A Tale of Two Cities by one half; 
there certainly is no internal evidence to support it. Nor 
have I found any confirmation of the assertion that Dickens 
was out of temper because of the success of "A Dead Heart" 
1 — though the coincidence must have been exceedingly 
annoying. 

But, after all, there is a likely explanation for Dickens's 
change of illustrator. His old friend, Frank Stone, died in 
1859, and he promptly exerted himself on behalf of young 
Marcus Stone, of whose abilities as an artist he had a very 
high opinion. As witness this letter that he wrote to Thomas 
Longman, the publisher : 

"I am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest 
hope that you will hold him in your remembrance, 
young Mr. Marcus Stone, son of poor Frank Stone. 
. . . You know, I daresay, what a start this young 
man made in the last Exhibition, and what a favourable 



"PHIZ" 47 

notice his picture attracted. He wishes to make an 
additional opening for himself in the illustration of 
books. He is an admirable draughtsman, has a most 
dextrous hand, a charming sense of grace and beauty, 
and a capital power of observation. These qualities 
in him I know well to my own knowledge. He is, in all 
things, modest, punctual, and right, and I would answer 
for him, if it were needful, with my head. If you will 
put anything in his way, you will do it a second time, 
I am certain." 

Given a young artist of whom he had such a glowing 
opinion, given the desire to help him as the son of a very 
dear friend, given the opportunity presented by the publi- 
cation of a new book — what more natural than that he should 
commission Marcus Stone to illustrate Our Mutual Friend? 
It may be, too, that Dickens felt that a change was desirable 
even though such a capable young artist, with such strong 
claims upon him had not been ready to hand. Phiz had 
been illustrating his works for twenty-three years ; times had 
changed, tastes had changed; the style of illustrations that 
was popular in 1836 was not so adapted to the tastes of 
1860. We may well understand Phiz feeling hurt: nothing 
could be more natural ; but assuredly Dickens had a very 
strong case indeed — a case possibly greatly strengthened by 
Phiz's action in joining the staff of "Once a Week." 

But we have it on the authority of the late F. G. Kitton 
that relations were not strained for long, and that just after 
Dickens's death Phiz was "considerably affected by the mere 
mention of the name of the illustrious novelist, which seemed 
to stir up feelings of regret at losing such a friend." 



CHAPTER VIII 

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD 

Pickwick appeared in volume form in the autumn of 1837, 
with a dedication to Thomas Noon Talfourd,, with whom a 
close friendship had been formed while the book was ap- 
pearing in parts. Dickens had first been drawn to Talfourd 
by the latter's activity in the cause of copyright. Sitting 
in the Press Gallery of the old House of Commons, he looked 
down, as we know, with something very like contempt upon 
the nation's legislators. But for a couple of Sessions before 
he left, he had the opportunity of watching the young bar- 
rister who had entered the House in 1835, and had been 
enthusiastic in the copyright cause. As a young author — - 
not, of course, dreaming of the greatness that lay before 
him, but still conscious of abilities and hopeful for success — ■ 
he welcomed Talfourd's efforts, and we may at least accept 
it as probable that his appreciation of those efforts led him 
to seek the acquaintance of the Member for Reading, who 
had just gained some fame as the author of "Ion," which 
Macready had staged. 

Acquaintance ripened into friendship very quickly, and it 
is not surprising. In Talfourd Dickens found a man, not 
of genius, perhaps, but of great gifts and undoubted versa- 
tility. More than that, he had been one of Charles Lamb's 
intimate friends, and had known every member of that great 
company of stars that had had the gentle Elia for its sun; 
he had scored a success with "Ion," and he was a friend of 
the great actor who had staged the piece, for whom Dickens 
had from boyhood entertained feelings of the greatest admi- 
ration. To become personally acquainted with such a man 
must have been a great joy to Boz. 

And so, by the time Pickwick was finished, they had formed 
a friendship that was never to be clouded. It is true that 
Pickwick was dedicated to Talfourd largely out of gratitude 

48 



THOMAS NOON TALFOURD 49 

for his efforts in respect to copyright, but that was not all. 
The dedication was a tribute to the personal friendship 
which existed between the men. Talfourd was selected to 
occupy the vice-chair at the dinner which was held to cele- 
brate the completion of this book. "And an excellent Vice 
he made," wrote Ainsworth; "he speaks with great fervour 
and tact, and being really greatly interested on the occa- 
sion, exerted himself to the utmost." Whilst Macready re- 
cords in his Diary: "Talfourd proposed Dickens's health in 
a very good speech." 

Talfourd could scarcely have been a man of strongly- 
marked personality, otherwise the friend of Lamb, and Cole- 
ridge, and Dickens would be better known to posterity than 
he is. But he must have been a lovable man. "Facile and 
fluent of kindliest speech," Forster says he was. "Those 
who knew him," says Ballantine, "will never forget his kindly 
and genial face, the happiness radiating from it when im- 
parting pleasure to others, and his generous hospitality," 
and Edmund Yates tells us that he was a "kindly host, with 
. . . beaming face." And when, in 1854, he died suddenly 
while addressing the Grand Jury at Stafford, Dickens paid 
a noble tribute in Household Words to his fine qualities: 

"So amiable a man, so gentle, so sweet-tempered, and 
of such noble simplicity, so perfectly unspoiled by his 
labours, and their rewards, is very rare upon this earth. 
. . . The chief delight of his life was to give delight 
to others. His nature was so exquisitely kind, that to 
be kind was its highest happiness. 

"An example in his social intercourse to those born 
to station, an example equally to those who win it for 
themselves ; teaching the one class to abate its stupid 
pride, the other to stand upon its eminence, not for- 
getting the road by which it got there and fawning upon 
no one. The conscientious judge, the charming writer 
and accomplished speaker, the gentle-hearted, guileless, 
affectionate man, has entered on a brighter world. 
Very, very many have lost a friend; nothing in creation 
has lost an enemy. 

"The hand that lays this poor flower on his grave 
was a mere boy's when he first clasped it — newly come 



50 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

from the work in which he himself began life, little used 
to the plough it has followed since — obscure enough, 
with much to correct and learn. Each of its successive 
tasks through many intervening years has been cheered 
by his warmest interest, and the friendship then begun 
has ripened to maturity in the passage of time; but 
there was no more self-assertion or condemnation in his 
winning goodness at first than at last. The success of 
other men made as little change in him as his own." 

The man of whom that could be written, even by his 
most partial friend, must have been a good man, a man 
worthy of friendship, a man with whom the world ought to 
to be better acquainted than it is. 

TaLfourd was one of the select circle in the days of 
Dickan'syearliest happiness. In 1839 he was at the Nicldeby 
dinner^ two years later he presided at the dinner to cele- 
brate the second volume of Master Humphrey' 's Clock. In 
1842 he was one of those who entertained Dickens to dinner 
at Greenwich on his return from America, and he was at 
many other of these delightful gatherings. 

In 1844 Talfourd was disappointed in what had seemed 
to be a grand opportunity of rendering his friend some signal 
service. The story of how Dickens's novels were plagiarised 
and pirated is well known, and it is equally common knowl- 
edge how strongly the novelist felt about it. At last, in a 
case of peculiar flagrancy in respect of the Carol, he took 
action in response to Talfourd's and Forster's urging. But 
the case was so flagrant that the Vice-Chancellor would not 
even hear Talfourd, who, of course, had been briefed by 
Dickens, and Forstcr comments : "What it cost our dear 
friend to suppress his speech by very much exceeded the 
labour and pains with which he had prepared it." After 
leaving the court, Dickens wrote to Forster: "Oh! the agony 
of Talfourd at Knight Bruce's not hearing him! He had 
sat up till three o'clock in the morning, he says, preparing 
his speech, and would have done all kinds of things with the 
affidavits." 

The author of "Ion" was of course a great admirer of 
Dickens's works, and we are told that for the Artful Dodger 
he evinced a particular regard. As Jeffrey pleaded that Lit- 




^/^t^<7 £a*^£ /u^£y~^ 



cM 



THOMAS NOON TALFOURD 51 

tie Nell might live, so Talfourd pleaded for the Dodger, "as 
earnestly in mitigation of judgment as ever at the bar for 
any client he most respected." And when the book in which 
the Dodger appears was completed he wrote the following 
sonnet: 

"Not only with the author's happiest praise 

Thy work shall be rewarded; 'tis akin 

To deeds of men who, scorning ease to win 
A blessing for the wretched, pierce the maze 
Which heedless ages nurture round the ways, 

Where fruitful sorrow tracks its parent sin, 

Content to listen to the wildest din 
Of passion, and in fearful shapes to gaze, 

So they may earn the power that intercedes, 

Wills the bright world and melts it; for within 
Wan childhood's squalid haunts, where barest needs 

Make tyranny more bitter, at thy call 
An angel face with plaintive sweetness pleads, 

For infant suffering, to the heart of all." 1 

It is sometimes said that Talfourd was the original of 
Tommy Traddles. I can find no proof of this, but there 
is just enough internal evidence to justify suspicion, so to 
speak. As Mr. Percy Fitzgerald says, "he may have offered 
suggestions for the character." Traddles's lovable ways and 
qualities of friendship may well have been taken from Tal- 
fourd. It is certainly conceivable that the latter's elevation 
to the bench just when the last numbers of Copperfield were 
being written suggested Traddles's destiny to Dickens. For 
though he has not yet donned the ermine when the book 
closes, we know he did so ultimately. 

In 1846 Talfourd and his wife visited Dickens at Lau- 
sanne. In 1841 commenced the "splendid strolling" on 
behalf of Leigh Hunt and John Poole, and at one of the 
earliest performances — at Manchester — Dickens delivered a 
prologue written by Talfourd. In 1849 this valued friend 
was raised to the bench, which, says Forster, "he adorned 
with qualities which are justly the pride of that profession, 
and with accomplishments which have become more rare in 
its highest places than they were in former times." And 
he adds : "Talfourd assumed nothing with the ermine but the 
privilege of more frequent intercourse with the tastes and 
friends he loved, and he continued to be the most joyous 

1 Another version of this Sonnet appeared in The Dickensian in 1905. 



52 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

and least affected of companions. Such small oddities or 
foibles as he had made him secretly only dearer to Dickens, 
who had no friend he was more attached to, and the many 
happy nights made happier by the voice so affluent in gener- 
ous words, and the face so bright with ardent sensibility, 
come back to me sorrowfully now." 

Upon his elevation Talfourd visited Dickens at Bonchurch, 
and the novelist wrote to Forster : "Talfourd delightful, and 
amuses me mightily. I am really quite enraptured at his 
success, and think of his happiness with uncommon pleasure." 
To that visit he also referred in the Household Words article 
from which I have already quoted: 

"In the first joy of his appointment to the judicial 
bench, he made a summer's visit to the seashore, to 
'share his exultation in the gratification of his long- 
cherished ambition with the friend' — now among the 
many friends who mourn his death and lovingly recall 
his virtues. Lingering in the bright moonlight at the 
close of a happy day, he spoke of his new functions, 
of his sense of the great responsibility he undertook, 
and of his placid belief that the habits of his profes- 
sional life rendered him equal to their efficient discharge ; 
but, above all, he spoke, with an earnestness nevermore 
to be separated in his friend's mind from the murmur 
of the sea upon a moonlight night, of his reliance on 
the strength of his desire to do right before God and 
man. He spoke with his own singleness of heart, and 
his solitary hearer knew how deep and true his purpose 
was." 

Among the earliest public readings given by the novelist 
was one at Reading for Talfourd's sake. That was in 1854, 
not long before his friend's death. Talfourd was a native 
of Reading, and he represented the town in Parliament from 
1835 to 1841, and from 1847 until he became a judge in 
1849, and it was a pleasing thing for Dickens to respond 
to his friend's appeal to give a reading there. 

Apropos of the fact that Talfourd sat for Reading from 
1835 to 1841, it is interesting to note that it was in the 
latter year that Dickens was approached with a view to his 







< a 

H ^ 




THOMAS NOON TALFOURD 53 

standing for that constituency. I have never seen this fact 
noted before, but it is decidedly interesting, and it is scarcely 
fanciful to imagine that Talfourd must have recommended 
his friend as the man who might succeed him. 

We may close with a story of a little joke that Dickens 
and Talfourd once played on Macready. Let it be related 
in the actor's own words. On December 6, 1839, he writes, 
"Dickens gave me a play to read called 'Glencoe,' " and on 
the following day, "Finished the play of 'Glencoe,' which has 
so much to praise in it." Then, on December 12, the entry 
is as follows: 

"Went, to dine with Talfourd. . . . Talfourd, For- 
ster, and self. After dinner the conversation turned on 
plays. I mentioned one I had of a striking character 
upon a popular subject. Talfourd asked me the title. 
I told him 'Glencoe.' He questioned me about its pos- 
sible melodramatic tendency. I told him that the treat- 
ment avoided the melodrama of the stage, that the style 
was an imitation of his writing, but without the point 
that terminates his speeches; that the story was well 
managed and dramatic, and that I intended to act it. 
At last, to my utter astonishment, he pulled out two 
books from his pocket, and said : 'Well, I will no longer 
conceal it — it is my play' — and he gave us each a copy ! 
I never in my life experienced a greater surprise. . . . 
I laughed loud and long." 



CHAPTER IX 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

Another very notable friendship that was formed during 
the time that Pickwick was appearing in parts was that with 
Waiter Savage Landor, to whom Dickens was introduced by 
Forster, who had met the poet in the summer of 1836. "That 
there should have been this communion of sympathy between 
two men of such widely different temperaments is a fact that 
can only be regarded as extraordinary." Thus commented 
a well-known newspaper upon the friendship of Dickens and 
Landor when, in February 1903, memorial tablets to both 
men were unveiled at Bath. And this particular newspaper 
was not alone ; almost every leader-writer who dealt with the 
event wrote to similar effect. As a matter of fact, this point 
of view arises from the common mistaken notion of the sort 
of man that Landor was. He certainly was a very hot- 
headed man, but he was as certainly a warm-hearted man; 
though it is true that he was often wrong-headed, it is also 
true that he was always right-hearted. Though he quar- 
relled violently very many times in the course of his long 
life, he made many friends who truly honoured him. There 
is nothing surprising to me in the fact that such a man 
should have appealed to Dickens, with his appreciation of 
"thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness," and his 
ever-present divine sense of humour. Landor's impetuosity, 
"the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go off 
like blank cannons, and hurt nothing," would but serve to 
strengthen the appeal that he would have for Dickens, who 
knew that he was "such a true gentleman in his manner, 
so chivalrously polite, his face lighted by a smile of so much 
tenderness," and that he "had nothing to hide, but showed 
himself exactly as he was." What, after all, is there so 
extraordinary in the fact that the novelist should have con- 
ceived an affection for a man whom he could thus describe? 

54 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 55 

And that Landor should have reciprocated the regard is 
no more remarkable. It seems to me to be the most natural 
thing in the world that a man of his enthusiasm for liberty, 
hatred of chicanery and humbug, and fundamental tender- 
ness, should have welcomed the entry into the lists of so 
sturdy a champion as Charles Dickens, and formed an admi- 
ration for this young writer who moved to laughter and to 
tears, and almost in a day had gained the ear of the public 
in the cause of the suffering and oppressed. 

Landor was sixty-one years old before the first number of 
Pickwick appeared. He was almost the doyen of literary 
men when "Boz" at an unusually early age started his great 
career. He had lived through great and stirring and epoch- 
making events, which had already receded into history; to 
Dickens he must have seemed like the survivor of a past 
heroic age. On the novelist's side there were reverence and 
enthusiasm for a "grand old man" ; on Landor's there was 
a whole-hearted welcome for a young writer who promised 
to carry on the great fight against oppression and corrup- 
tion, that he himself had waged all his life, and whose earnest- 
ness and frank joy of life must have had an irresistible appeal 
for him. There was, in short, a mutual admiration that 
developed into genuine affection, almost as of parent and 
child. 

The poet's first message to Dickens is recorded by Forster 
as having been entrusted to him in April 1839: "Tell him he 
has drawn from me more tears and more smiles than are 
remaining to me for all the rest of the world, real or ideal." 
The friendship quickly ripened, and on Landor's next birth- 
day — January 30, 1840 — Dickens and Forster, with Mrs. 
Dickens, and also Maclise, visited the old man at Bath, where 
he was then living. This visit is, of course, historic, because 
it was marked by the birth of the idea which subsequently 
took the form of Little Nell. It was a happy circumstance, 
for, as Forster tells us, "No character in prose fiction was 
a greater favourite with Landor. He thought that upon her, 
Juliet might for a moment have turned her eyes from Romeo 
and that Desdemona might have taken her hair-breadth 
escapes to heart, so interesting and pathetic did she seem to 
him." In lines which he addressed to Dickens in "The 
Examiner" in 1844, Landor wrote: 



56 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

f Write me few letters; I'm content 
With what for all the world is meant; 
Write then, for all; but since my breast 
Is far more faithful than the rest, 
Never shall any other shared 
With little Nelly nestling there." 

Forster adds that when the circumstance referred to was 
mentioned to Landor some years later "he broke into one of 
those whimsical bursts of extravagance out of which arose 
the fancy of Boythorn. With tremendous emphasis he con- 
firmed the fact, and added that he had never in his life re- 
gretted anything so much as his having failed to carry out 
an intention he had formed respecting it; for he meant to 
have purchased that house, 35 St. James's Square, and then 
and there to have burnt it to the ground, to the end that no 
meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of 
Nell. Then," adds the biographer, "he would pause a little, 
become conscious of his absurdity, and break into a thunder- 
ing peal of laughter." 

For many years Dickens and Forster travelled to Bath on 
January 30, to help to make their friend happy on his birth- 
day, and Mrs. Lynn Linton has told us something about the 
visit of 1849 — Landor's 75th birthday. "Dickens," she says, 
"was bright, gay, and winsome, and while treating Mr. Lan- 
dor with the respect of a younger man for an older, allowed 
his wit to play about him, bright and harmless as summer 
lightning." 

According to Forster, it was on this occasion that Landor 
spoke of the many tears that David Copperfield had caused 
him to shed, "to which the author of that delightful book 
himself replied by a question, which, from so powerful and 
so gentle a master of both laughter and tears, startled us. 
. . . 'But is it not yet more wonderful that one of the most 
popular books on earth has absolutely nothing in it to cause 
any one either to laugh or cry?' " The reference was to 
"Robinson Crusoe." Here Forster's memory obviously 
played him false. This conversation is reported as having 
taken place in 1849, but as a matter of fact Forster is re- 
calling a conversation which took place seven years later, 
and at which Landor was not present. This is proved by 
the fact that Dickens wrote the following letter to the poet 
on July 5, 1856: 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 57 

". . .1 have just been propounding to Forster, if 
it is not a wonderful testimony to the homely force of 
truth, that one of the most popular books on earth has 
nothing in it to make any one laugh or cry? Yet I think, 
with some confidence, that you never did either over any 
passage in 'Robinson Crusoe.' In particular I took 
Friday's death as one of the least tender, and (in the 
true sense) least sentimental things ever written. It is 
a book I read very much; and the wonder of its pro- 
digious effect on me and every one, and the admiration 
thereof, grows on me the more I observe this curious 
fact." 

After Landor left Bath * those birthday parties ceased to 
be, and when Dickens visited the city in 1869, poor in health, 
there was sadness in remembrance. "Landor's ghost," he 
wrote to Forster, "goes along the silent streets here before 
me. . . . The place looks to me like a cemetery which the 
Dead have succeeded in rising and taking. Having built 
streets of their old gravestones, they wander about scantily 
trying to 'look alive.' A dead failure." 

Shortly after that first visit to Landor at Bath, in 1840, 
Forster was amused to receive from the poet, with the query, 
"What on earth does it all mean?" a letter which Dickens 
had written to him: 

"Society is unhinged here (wrote the novelist) by her 
Majesty's marriage, and I am sorry to add that I have 
fallen hopelessly in love with the Queen, and wander up 
and down with vague and dismal thoughts of running 
away to some uninhabited island with a maid of honour, 
to be entrapped by conspiracy for that purpose. Can 
you suggest any particular young person, serving in 
such a capacity, who would suit me? It is too much, 
perhaps, to ask you to join the band of noble youths 
(Forster is in it and Maclise) who are to assist me in 
this great enterprise, but a man of your energy would 
be invaluable. I have my eye upon Lady , prin- 
cipally because she is very beautiful and has no strong 
brothers. Upon this, and other points of the scheme, 

1 He returned to the City some years later, but not to St. James's Square. 



58 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

however, we will confer more at large when we meet; 
and meanwhile burn this document, that no suspicion 
may arise or rumour get abroad." 1 

It is not difficult to understand that Landor should have 
been puzzled by the receipt of such an effusion ! It was all 
a wildly irresponsible joke, of course, "encouraged," Forster 
records, "to such whimsical lengths not alone by him, but 
(under his influence) by the two friends named, that it took 
the wildest forms of humorous extravagance." But it must 
have been sadly bewildering to poor Landor! 

In 1841 Dickens gave the poet marked proof of the esteem 
in which he held him, by inviting him to act as godfather 
to his second son. And he conveyed the invitation in a letter 
that must have sent a glow through the old man's heart. 
It would give the child something to boast of, to be called 
Walter Landor, he wrote, and to call him so would do his 
own heart good. For, as to himself, whatever realities had 
gone out of the ceremony of christening, the meaning still 
remained in it of enabling him to form a relationship with 
friends he most loved; and as to the boy, he held that to 
give him a name to be proud of was to give him also another 
reason for doing nothing unworthy or untrue when he came 
to be a man. 

In December of that year the christening took place, and 
Landor came up from Bath for the event. "We had some 
days of much enjoyment," says Forster. The poet always 
took a keen interest in his godson's progress, one of his most 
winning qualities being his love of children. In 1851, when 
Dickens was engaged in that "splendid strolling," with the 
famous company of distinguished amateur actors, he wrote 
to his wife from Clifton as follows : "I saw old Landor at 
Bath, who has bronchitis. When he was last in town, Ken- 
yon drove him about, by God, half the morning, under a 
most damnable pretence of taking him to where Walter was 
at school, and they never found the confounded house ! He 
had in his pocket on that occasion a souvenir for Walter in 
the form of a Union shirt pin, which is now in my possession, 
and shall be duly brought home." 

1 About eighteen years ago, I saw this letter quoted quite seriously in a 
London newspaper as evidence of Dickens's occasional lack of mental balance! 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 59 

In 1852 Dickens paid his friend another compliment by 
painting a full-length portrait of him in Bleak House — a 
portrait of him as he was when they were first acquainted, 
and undoubtedly as accurate a portrait as was ever produced 
of any man. 

"We all conceived a prepossession in his favour," says 
Esther Summerson, "for there was a sterling quality in 
his laugh, and in his vigorous healthy voice, and in the 
roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word 
he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, 
which seemed to go off like blank cannons and hurt 
nothing. But we were hardly prepared to have it so 
confirmed by his appearance, when Mr. Jarndyce pre- 
sented him. He was not only a very handsome old 
gentleman — upright and stalwart as he had been de- 
scribed to us — with a massive grey head, a fine com- 
posure of face when silent, a figure that might have 
become corpulent but for his being so continually in 
earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might 
have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement 
emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; 
but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so 
chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of 
so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so 
plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed himself 
exactly as he was — incapable ... of anything on a 
limited scale, and firing away with those blank great 
guns, because he carried no small arms whatever — that 
really I could not help looking at him with equal pleas- 
ure as he sat at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed 
with Ada and me, or was led by Mr. Jarndyce into 
some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head 
like a bloodhound, and gave out that tremendous 
ha, ha, ha !" 

And not only in regard to the broad outline of the char- 
acter did Dickens draw upon his knowledge of his friend. 
One very important event in Landor's life is given with a 
disguise that must have been far from impenetrable to the 
poet's friends. We all remember the dispute that Boythorn 



60 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

had with his neighbour, Sir Leicester Dedlock, at Chesney 
Wold. 

" 'But how do you and your neighbour get on about 
the disputed right of way?' said Mr. Jarndyce. 

" 'By my soul !' exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly 
firing another volley, 'that fellow is, and his father was, 
and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arro- 
gant, imbecile, pig-headed, numskull, ever, by some in- 
explicable mistake of nature, born in any station of 
life but a walking-stick's ! The whole of that family 
are the most solemnly conceited and consummate block- 
heads ! But it's no matter ; he should not shut up my 
path if he were fifty baronets melted into one, and liv- 
ing in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, 
like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, 
by his agent, or secretary, or somebody writes to me, 
"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compli- 
ments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his 
attention to the fact that the green pathway by the 
old parsonage house, now the property of Mr. Law- 
rence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester's right of way, being 
in fact a portion of the park of Chesney Wold; and 
that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up the 
same." I write to the fellow, "Mr. Lawrence Boythorn 
presents his compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, 
Baronet, and has to call his attention to the fact that 
he totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock's 
positions on every possible subject, and has to add, in 
reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be 
glad to see the man who may undertake to do it." The 
fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye, to 
construct a gateway. I play upon that execrable 
scoundrel with a fire-engine, until the breath is nearly 
driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in 
the night, I chop it down and burn it in the morning. 
He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence, and 
pass and repass. I catch them in humane man-traps, 
fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the 
engine — resolve to free mankind from the insup- 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 61 

portable burden of the existence of those lurking 
ruffians. He brings actions for trespass: I bring 
actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and 
battery; I defend them, and continue to assault and 
batter. Ha, ha, ha !" 

Forster relates several stories of Landor's quarrels with 
his neighbours at Llanthony, in Monmouthshire, and in those 
stories there are many touches which might have been taken 
from the pages of Bleak House. Here, for instance, is 
an extract from a letter of Landor's relating to the troubles 
he had with one of his tenants. The man referred to de- 
served the vituperation heaped upon him, it may be said, 
but the point is that the whole passage is entirely in the 
Boythorn spirit. 

"I have mentioned only a few instances of this fel- 
low's roguery and ingratitude; but enough for you to 
judge of him. All his brothers — three certainly — have 
abandoned every visible means of procuring an honest 
livelihood, and are with him ; although his poor labour- 
ers are starving, and he has actually borrowed money 
from them. In fact, he thinks it more reputable to be 
convicted of roguery than suspected of poverty. He 
has embezzled the money I allowed for the repairs of 
the house, because I insisted on no written agreement 
and relied on his honour. He has discharged me and 
my gamekeeper from shooting on his farm." 

Some time before that Landor, in view of the obvious need 
that existed for a Justice of the Peace in his district, ap- 
pealed to the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Beaufort, to 
recommend him for the Commission. The Duke declined, 
and Landor wrote to Lord Chancellor Eldon. Here is an 
extract from the letter: 

" When the Duke of Beaufort thought proper to de- 
cline my offer, I wrote again to him with perfect 
temper, and requested him to appoint one better quali- 
fied. He had no reply to make. . . . What honour 
it will confer on the Lord Lieutenant to have rejected 



62 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

the public and gratuitous service of such a man, is 
worth his consideration rather than mine. It certainly 
will bestow on him a more lasting celebrity than any 
other Duke of Beaufort has acquired. I did not believe 
him to have been so ambitious. But if it should appear 
that any Lord Lieutenant has erred in pursuing game 
by a track so unfrequented and so cheerless, your lord- 
ship at least has the power of preventing the ill con- 
sequences which would arise from his stupid precipi- 
tancy or his unruly passion. . . . It is possible that 
a Lord Lieutenant may have been instructed in little 
else than in the worming of hounds, the entrapping of 
polecats, the baiting or worrying of badgers and foxes ; 
that he may be a perverse, and ignorant, and imbecile 
man ; that he may be the passive and transferable tool 
of every successive administration; and that he may 
consider all whose occupations are more becoming, the 
gentleman and the scholar who is wiser or more inde- 
pendent than himself, as a standing and living re- 
proach." 

Does not Boythorn himself speak here? 

Dickens pictures many of Landor's most winning traits. 
Every reader will remember Boythorn's pet canary which 
would be perched on his master's forehead, or on his finger 
eating out of his hand, what time he would be pouring out 
the most tremendous denunciations in the most thunderous 
of voices. Well, it is all a transcript from life. As one of 
Landor's friends wrote: "He was an enthusiastic friend, 
and as far as sound violence, and unmeasured vituperation 
went, a bitter hater; but beyond unsparing vituperation, he 
would not have injured an enemy. He would certainly not 
have lent a hand to crush him." And another friend wrote: 
"He had the reputation of being a violent man. . . . But 
I never saw anything but the greatest gentleness and cour- 
tesy in him, especially to women." In almost similar words 
Esther Summerson writes of Boythorn over and over again. 
And if Boythorn had his canary, Landor had his dormice 
and his pet dog. The latter — a Pomeranian named Pomero 
— was his especial favourite for many years. "By Heaven," 
says Boythorn, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe! 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 63 

He is the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten 
thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity 
for his sole support, in case he should outlive me. He is, 
in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. "' 

Writes Landor to Forster : "Pomero was on my knee when 
your letter came. He is now looking out of the window; 
a sad male gossip as I often tell him. I dare not take 
him with me to London. He would most certainly be stolen, 
and I would rather lose Ipsley or Llanthony." And when 
a lady asked him if he would care to part with the dog, he 
replied, "No, madam, not for a million of money !" "Not 
for a million!" she exclained. "Not for a million," he added. 
"A million would not make me at all happier, and the loss 
of Pomero would make me miserable for life." 

In 1853 we find Dickens acknowledging a dedication in 
these terms: 

"My Dear Landor, 

"I am in town for a day or two, and Forster 
tells me I may now write to thank you for the happi- 
ness you have given me by honouring my name with 
such generous mention, on such a noble place, in your 
great book. . . . You know how heartily and inex- 
pressibly I prize what you have written to me, or you 
never would have selected me for such a distinction. I 
could never thank you enough, my dear Landor, and 
I will not thank you in words, any more. Believe me, 
I receive the dedication like a great dignity, the worth 
of which I hope I thoroughly know. The Queen could 
give me none in exchange that I wouldn't laughingly 
snap my fingers at." 

Landor spent the last few years of his life in Italy, and 
in one of the last letters he wrote from Florence he sent 
his love to "noble Dickens." The friends had met for the 
last time just before his departure in 1858, which was in 
consequence of a libel action in which the old man had got 
himself embroiled at Bath. Passing through London, he 
stayed a night at Forster's house. Dickens was of the party 
there to meet him, but Landor did not join the company. 
Dickens left the room to greet his friend. "I thought," 



64 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

wrote one of the company, "that Landor would talk over 
with him the unpleasant crisis ; and I shall never forget my 
amazement when Dickens came back into the room laughing, 
and said that he had found him very jovial, and that his 
whole conversation was upon the character of Catullus, 
Tibullus, and other Latin poets." 

Landor died in 1864, and in All the Year Round Dickens 
paid a tribute to his memory in a review of Forster's biog- 
raphy of their "mutual friend." 

"In a military burial-ground in India, the name of 
Walter Landor is associated with the present writer's 
over the grave of a young officer. No name could 
stand there, more inseparably associated in the writer's 
mind with the dignity of generosity ; with a noble scorn 
of all littleness, all cruelty, oppression, fraud, and false 
pretence." 

Twenty years before, Dickens, about to journey to Italy, 
had asked Landor what he would most wish to have in re- 
membrance of that land, and he had been told "An ivy leaf 
from Fiesole." Dickens had plucked a leaf and sent it to 
the poet "with his love." When Landor died, that ivy leaf 
was found among his treasures. 



CHAPTER X 

"dear old mac" 

Young Dickens — still not twenty-six years old — was now 
fairly launched on the sea of success. Instantaneously 
almost, he had sprung right into the front rank. At a bound 
he had become the most popular author that England had 
ever known. How popular he was has been told by many, 
and it is not my purpose to recount it yet again; but it is 
true to say that his name was a household word. He had 
awakened to find himself famous, his name on everybody's 
lips, he himself sought after by the most famous men of the 
time, who a bare two years ago had not heard of his exist- 
ence, with whom, two years previously, he could scarcely 
have dared to dream that he might ever be on speaking 
terms. Yet here he was already on intimate terms with 
Ainsworth and Macready and Landor, and forming new 
friends as brilliant and as famous almost daily. Among 
these Daniel Maclise was the favourite. For years he played 
a very big part in Dickens's life, and a rare friendship 
existed. They were to drift apart to some extent in after 
years, but there was to be no quarrel or ill-feeling. Maclise" 
was to meet with disappointment and injustice in the pursuit 
of his art, and it was to lead him into a waywardness (as 
Dickens called it) which was to cause him to drift out of the 
circle of friends who held him in such true esteem, but there 
was to be no real rupture of the friendship with Boz. The 
affection which was formed in the beginning was to last until 
the end. 

In the early days, when each was in the first flush of his 
success, when hearts were young, and every month was May, 
they, with Forster, spent many happy hours. Other friends 
were with them sometimes — Ainsworth most often — but these 
three were "choice spirits," and every one who knew them 
at this time, tells how inseparable they were, and how thev 
gave themselves up, heart and soul, to the enjoyment of life's 

65 



66 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

morning. Scarcely a day passed but they met; scarcely a 
day but they were off riding or tramping together. Some- 
times one would tempt the others ; sometimes two would con- 
spire to tempt the third. As thus: 

"Mr. John Forster (of Lincoln's Inn Fields), and 
Mr. Charles Dickens (of universal popularity), request 
the favour of Mr. Maclise's company at supper, at the 
Parthenon Club to-night at half-past ten precisely. 

"Thinking it possible that Mr. Maclise may have gone 
to Court at an early hour this morning, they address 
this letter both to his private house and to the Athe- 
naeum; and but for the veneration due to their youthful 
sovereign, they would forward a duplicate to the Palace 
at Pimlico." 

All records tell us that Maclise — this "dear and familiar 
friend" — must have been a glorious companion at this time — 
a companion after Boz's own heart. Handsome, brilliant, 
loyal, full of buoyant animal spirits, and yet with a full 
appreciation of the seriousness of life, he was a soul very 
much akin to Dickens. Forster, in describing the summer 
spent by the novelist at Twickenham in 1838, tells us: ". . . 
the social charm of Maclise was seldom wanting, nor was 
there anything that exercised a greater fascination over 
Dickens than the grand enjoyment of idleness, the ready self- 
abandonment to the luxury of laziness, which we both so 
laughed at in Maclise, under whose easy swing of indif- 
ference, always the most amusing at the most aggravating 
events and times, we knew that there was artist-work as 
eager, energy as unwearjang, and observation almost as pene- 
trating as Dickens's own." 

And he adds, "A greater enjoyment than the fellowship of 
Maclise at this period it would be difficult to imagine. 
Dickens hardly saw more than he did, while yet he seemed 
to be seeing nothing, and the small esteem in which this rare 
faculty was held by himself, a quaint oddity that in him 
gave to shrewdness itself an air of Irish simplicity, his un- 
questionable turn for literature, and a varied knowledge of 
books not always connected with such love and such un- 
wearied practice of one special and absorbing art, combined , 




s 



\ / 






1 v, - 



Daniel Maclise, R.A. 



"DEAR OLD MAC" 67 

to render him attractive far beyond the common. His fine 
genius and his handsome person, of neither of which he 
seemed himself to be in the slightest degree conscious, com- 
pleted the charm." 

It is scarce an exaggeration to say that not even Forster 
himself was better loved in the early days than Maclise, and 
there is something peculiarly sad in the record of the artist's 
cares and disappointments, causing him gradually to change 
his habits, until he "shut himself up within himself," and 
drifted away from the friends who loved him so well. 

But "sufficient unto the day " Let us not leave those 

early days yet. Dickens spent the summer of 1839' at Peter- 
sham, and here, we read, he and Maclise were the most prom- 
inent in all sorts of sports. "Bar-leaping, bowling, and 
quoits," says Forster, "were among the games carried on with 
the greatest ardour. . . . Even the lighter recreations of 
battledore and bagatelle were pursued with relentless 
energy." 

Of course, Maclise was present at the dinner given to 
Macready in 1839, over which Dickens presided. In this 
same year, too, he was one of the company that gathered 
at The Albion to celebrate the completion of Nicholas 
Nickleby. It was a happy thought of those concerned to 
hang his recently executed portrait of Dickens in the room. 
This, of course, was the painting known as the "Nickleby 
portrait," which now hangs in its rightful place, the National 
Portrait Gallery. It was bequeathed to the nation bv Sir 
E. R. Jodrell, who bought it at the Gad's Hill sale in~1870 
for £693. There are many portraits of the novelist in exist- 
ence, but it is the unanimous testimony of all who knew him 
at this time, that this is by far the best. As a likeness, said 
Thackeray, "it is perfectly amazing; a looking-glass could 
not render a better facsimile. Here we have the real identical 
man, Dickens ; the artist must have understood the inward 
Boz as well as the outward, before he made this admirable 
representation of him." It was painted for Messrs. Chap- 
man & Hall for reproduction as a frontispiece to the first 
volume edition of Nickleby, and after it had been duly en- 
graved for that purpose, it was presented by the publishers 
to Dickens — a graceful act. It was exhibited at the Royal 
Academy in 1840. 



68 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

In 1840 Maclise accompanied Dickens and his wife and 
Forster to Bath, on that visit to Landor, during which 
Dickens first conceived the idea of Little Nell. This was 
but one of many trips in which Maclise accompanied the 
novelist. In April of this same year, for instance, the launch- 
ing of Master Humphrey's Clock was celebrated by a trip 
to Stratford-on-Avon. The party was the same that had 
visited Bath. The Clock met with a huge sale, and so the 
holiday was extended somewhat, Litchfield being visited as 
well as Shakespeare's native town. In the same year, Maclise 
and Forster met Dickens on his way back from Broadstairs, 
where he had spent the summer, and they "passed two agree- 
able days in re-visiting well-remembered scenes" at Chat- 
ham, Rochester, and Cobham. 

Naturally Maclise was to the fore in welcoming Dickens 
home from America in 1842. "By the sound of his cheery 
voice," says Forster, "I first knew that he was come, and 
from my house we went together to Maclise, also without a 
moment's warning." "Dear old Mac" was present at the 
Greenwich dinner, of course, but, says Forster, "the most 
special celebration was reserved for the autumn, when, by 
way of challenge to what he had seen while abroad, a home 
journey was arranged with Stanfield, Maclise, and myself for 
his companions, into such of the most striking scenes of a 
picturesque English county as the majority of us might not 
before have visited ; Cornwall being ultimately chosen." 

The trip duly came off, and surely never did four school- 
boys let loose for the holidays have a more rollicking time. 
Three weeks the tour lasted, and in that time "land and sea 
yielded each its marvels to us." 

"Blessed star of morning," wrote Dickens to Prof. 
Felton, "such a trip as we had into Cornwall. . . . ! 
. . . We went down into Devonshire by railroad, and 
there we hired an open carriage, from an innkeeper, 
patriotic in all Pickwick matters, and went on with post 
horses. Sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all 
day, sometimes both. I kept the joint-stock purse, 
ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted 
facetious conversations with the postboys, and regu- 
lated the pace at which we travelled, . . . and Maclise, 




Charles Dickens 

(1839) 
From an Engraving by Finden of a Painting by Daniel Maclis'e, R.A. 



"DEAR OLD MAC" 69 

having nothing particular to do, sang songs. Heavens ! 
If you could have seen the necks of bottles . . . peer- 
ing out of the carriage pockets ! ... If you could have 
followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and 
into the strange caverns on the gloomy seashore, and 
down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of 
giddy heights where the unspeakably green water was 
roaring, I don't know how many hundred feet below! 
If you could have seen but one gleam of the bright 
fires by which we sat in the big rooms of ancient inns 
at night, until long after the small hours had come and 
gone, or smelt but one steam of the hot punch . . . 
which came in every evening in a huge broad china bowl ! 
I never laughed in my life as I did on this journey. It 
would have done you good to hear me. I was choking 
and gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of 
my stock, all the way. . . . Seriously, I do believe there 
was never such a trip. And they made such sketches, 
those two men, in the most romantic of our halting- 
places, that you would have sworn we had the Spirit of 
Beauty with us, as well as the Spirit of Fun." 

Maclise's principal contribution to the artistic products 
of the tour was "The Nymph of the Waterfall." For the 
figure of the nymph, Miss Georgina Hogarth posed; the 
waterfall was that of St. Knighton. This picture was ex- 
hibited at the Academy in 1843, and Forster tells us that 
"so eager was Dickens to possess this landscape . . . yet so 
anxious that our friend should be spared the sacrifice which 
he knew would follow an avowal of his wish, that he bought 
it under a feigned name before the Academy opened, and 
steadily refused to take back the money which on discovery 
of the artifice Maclise pressed upon him." The artist, indeed, 
returned Dickens's cheque, with the following letter: 

"My Dear Dickens, 

"How could you think of sending me a cheque 
for what was to me a matter of gratification? I am 
almost inclined to be offended with you. May I not be 
permitted to give some proof of the value I attach to 
your friendship? I return the cheque with regret that 



70 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

you should have thought it necessary to send it to yours 
faithfully, 

"Daniel, Maceise." 

To which Dickens replied: 

"Do not be offended, I quite appreciate the feeling 
which induced you to return what I sent you; notwith- 
standing, I must ask you to take it back again. If I 
could have contemplated for an instant the selfish en- 
grossment of so much of your time, and extraordinary 
power, I should have had no need (knowing you, I knew 
that well) to resort to the little artifice I played off. 
I will take anything else from you at any time that you 
will give me, and any scrap from your hand; but I 
entreat you not to disturb this matter. I am willing 
to be your debtor for anything else in the whole wide 
range of your art, as you shall very readily find when- 
ever you put me to the proof." 

Maclise put his friend to the proof five years later. He 
then painted a portrait of Mrs. Dickens as a companion to 
the Nichleby portrait of the novelist, and this was accepted 
as a token of his friendship. The "N\mph of the Water- 
fall" was purchased after Dickens's death by Forster for 
610 guineas, and is now in the Forster Collection at South 
Kensington. 

In addition to the more extended trips, and to the daily 
ridings and trampings, to which reference has been made 
there were frequent junketings. Macready, for instance, re- 
cords on July 30, 1841, "Prepared for our long-promised 
expedition ; Stanfield came to accompany us ; we set out 
together, calling for Mrs. Dickens; went to Belvedere; arrived 
there, found the other carriage with Dickens, Forster, 
Maclise, and Cattermole. . . . Leaving Belvedere, we lunched 
at the small inn, and returned to Greenwich, where we saw 
the hospital, and meeting Drs. Elliotson and Quin, and Mr. 
Roberts, we dined at the Trafalgar." On another date the 
actor writes, "Catherine called for me, and we went to Green- 
wich to dine with Stanfield. Our party consisted of the 
Dickenses, Quin, Liston, Maclise, E. Landseer, Grant, Allan 




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"DEAR OLD MAC" 71 

and niece, Forster, who was stentorian, Ainsworth, etc.; 
cheerful day." Again, "Went to Richmond — Star and Gar- 
ter; met Forster, Mr. and Mrs. Dickens, Miss Hogarth, 
Maclise, and Stanfield; we had a very merry — I suppose I 
must say jolly day — rather more tumultuous than I like." 

And yet again: "Stanfield, Maclise, Mr. and Mrs. Horace 
Twiss arrived; then Mr. and Mrs. Dickens, Miss Hogarth, 
and Catherine, and Troughton, and we sat down to one of 
those peculiar English banquets, a whitebait dinner. We 
were all very cheerful — very gay; all unbent, and without 
ever forgetting the respect due to each other; all was mirth 
unrestrained and delighted gaiety. Songs were sung in rapid 
succession, and jests flung about from each part of the table. 
Choruses broke out, and the reins were flung over the necks 
of the merry set. After, 'Auld Lang Syne,' sung by all, 
Catherine giving the solos, we returned home in our hired 
carriage and an omnibus hired for the house, Kenyon and I 
on the box of the carriage. A very happy day." 

Maclise's pencil was often at the service of his friend. 
For instance, Dickens took with him to America a delightful 
drawing of his children; and in the following year the well- 
known sketch of Dickens, his wife, and his sister-in-law was 
executed, of which, Forster says, "never did a touch so light 
carry with it more truth of observation. The likenesses of 
all are excellent. . . . Nothing ever done of Dickens himself 
has conveyed more vividly his look and bearing at this yet 
youthful time. He is in his most pleasing aspect; flattered, 
if you will; but nothing that is known to me gives a general 
impression so life-like and true of the then frank, eager, 
handsome face." Maclise took no part in the amateur the- 
atricals, but there is in existence a fine painting by him of 
Forster as Kiteley in "Everyman in his Humour," whilst 
in the Dyce and Forster Collection at South Kensington, is 
a playbill of this play (September 20, 1845) bearing a pencil 
.sketch by Maclise of Forster as Kiteley and Dickens as Boba- 
dil. He immortalised, too, the famous reading of The Chimes 
at Forster's house on December 2, 1844. Further, he exe- 
cuted a drawing of Dickens's house at Devonshire Terrace, 
whilst his "Apotheosis of the Raven" is also well known. 

Last, but very far from least, Maclise contributed illus- 
trations to three of the Christmas Books — two each to The 



72 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, and four to The 
Battle of Life, and also one picture, Nell and the Sexton, 
to Tlie Old Curiosity Shop. "It is a delight, wrote Dickens 
to Forster with reference to The Battle of Life, "to look at 
these little landscapes of the dear old boy. How gentle and 
elegant, and yet how manly and vigorous they are ! I have 
a perfect joy in them." 

Of Maclise's opinion of Dickens's work there is only one 
piece of evidence. In a letter to Forster when Dombey and 
Son was appearing in numbers, he wrote: "I think it very 
good — the old nautical instrument seller novel and most 
promising. I'm never up to his young girls — he is so very 
fond of the age of 'Nell,' when they are most insipid. I 
hope he is not going to make another 'Slowboy' — but I am 
only trying to say something and to find fault when there is 
none to find. He is absolutely alone." 

It need hardly be said that Dickens had a very high 
opinion of Maclise's gifts, but that waywardness, to which 
reference has been made, and which is remarked on by several 
who knew him, was very early observed by the novelist. "He 
is such a discoursive fellcw," Dickens wrote to Fenton, "and 
so eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his 
pictures I can hardly tell you of them as leading to any 
one strong purpose. . . . He is a tremendous creature, and 
might be anything. But, like all tremendous creatures, takes 
his own way, and flies off at unexpected breaches in the con- 
ventional wall." To the same friend he also wrote, "You 
asked me long ago, about Maclise. . . . He is such a way- 
ward fellow in his subjects, that it would be next to impos- 
sible to write such an article as you were thinking about. 
. . . He is in great favour with the Queen, and paints secret 
pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on the 
morning of his birthday, and the like. But if he has a care, 
he will leave his mark on more enduring things than palace 
walls." x 

And with his inherent generosity towards his friends he 
wrote in "Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine," August 
1845, a fine appreciation of Maclise's cartoon, "The Spirit of 
Chivalry," which he described as "a composition of such mar- 

1 It'is curious that to-day Maclise is known to most people only by his 
frescoes on the walls of the Houses of Parliament — the Palace of Westminster. 



"DEAR OLD MAC" 73 

vellous beauty, of such infinite variety, of such masterly de- 
sign, of such vigorous and skilful drawing, of such thought 
and fancy, of such surpassing and delicate accuracy of detail, 
subserving one grand harmony, and one plain purpose, that 
it may be questioned whether the Fine Arts in any period of 
their history, have known a more remarkable performance." 
This cartoon was painted for Westminster Hall to the order 
of the Commissioners. How meanly and despicably Maclise 
was treated by that body of circumlocutionists is known, 
and Dickens, bursting with indignation at this treatment of 
his friend, whose genius he knew and understood, gave full 
vent to his indignation in this article, which breathes through- 
out the spirit of chivalry itself. 1 

As already stated, it was the bitterness arising from his 
treatment by the Commissioners that caused Maclise to lose 
his interest in life. His health had never been good, and it 
steadily broke now. He died but a few weeks before his great 
friend — on April 27, 1870. "Like you at Ely, so I at 
Higham, had the shock of first reading at a railway station 
of the death of our dear old friend and companion," wrote 
Dickens to Forster. "What the shock would be, you know 
too well. It has been only after great difficulty, and after 
hardening and steeling myself to the subject, by at once 
thinking of it and avoiding it in a strange way, that I have 
been able to get command over it and over myself. If I feel 
at the time that I can be sure of the necessary composure, 
I shall make a reference to it at the Academy to-morrow." 

The reference was made at the Academy banquet on 
May 1. Having replied to the toast of "Literature," Dickens 
said: 

"I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, advert- 
ing to a sad theme to which H.R.H. the Prince of Wales 
also made allusion, and to which the President referred 
with the eloquence of genuine feeling. . . . 

"For many years I was one of the two most intimate 
friends and most constant companions of the late Mr. 
Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen art I will venture 
to say nothing here, but of his prodigious fertility of 

1 See Miscellaneous Papers. 



74 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

mind and wonderful wealth of intellect I may confi- 
dently assert that they would have made him, if he had 
been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a 
painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the 
greatest as to his generous appreciation of young aspi- 
rants, and the greatest and largest hearted as to his 
peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gal- 
lantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, with- 
out one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural at 
the last as at the first ; in wit a man, simplicity a child ; 
no artist, of whatsoever denomination, I make bold to 
say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory more 
pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer 
chivalry to the art goddess whom he worshipped." 

"The words came from his lips, I have been told," says 
Dickens's daughter, Mrs. Perugini, "as though he were in- 
spired, and after the sound of his voice died away, there was 
for a few instants a great silence in the room, then all the 
artists and other guests present crowded round him, thank- 
ing and congratulating Lim." One of these guests has re- 
corded that other toasts and speeches were to have followed, 
but after this magnificent tribute to the memory of a dear 
friend, the company, moved by a common instinct, rose and 
departed. All felt that nothing should follow such a speech 
as had just been made. To quote Forster once more: "These 
were the last public words of Dickens, and he could not have 
spoken any worthier of himself, or better deserved than by 
him of whom they were spoken.'' 



CHAPTER XI 

GEORGE CATTERMOLE 

George Cattermole, who was one of the most welcome 
visitors to Twickenham in that summer of 1838, had mar- 
ried a distant relative of Dickens's, and it was through his 
engagement that the novelist came to know him. Dickens 
was at his wedding, and, we are told, hilariously pelted 
the couple with rice. The following day he wrote from 
Petersham : 

"You know all I would say from my heart and soul 
on the auspicious event of yesterday ; but you don't 
know what I would say about the delightful recollec- 
tions I have of your 'good lady's' charming looks and 
bearing, upon which I discoursed most eloquently here 
last evening, and at considerable length. As I am crip- 
pled in this respect, however, by a suspicion that pos- 
sibly she may be looking over your shoulder while you 
read this note (I would lay a moderate wager that you 
have looked round twice or thrice), I shall content 
myself with saying that I am ever heartily, my dear 
Cattermole, Hers and yours." 

Writing of Cattermole in those early days Forster says 
that he "had then enough and to spare of fun as well as 
fancy to supply ordinary artists and humorists by the dozen, 
and wanted only a little more ballast and steadiness to 
possess all that could give attraction to good-fellowship." 
This must not be taken too literally. It is merely a not very 
happy way of saying that Cattermole was not a practical 
man. Given the two alternatives that the late Mr. Peter 
Keary offered to every man, Cattermole would have "got 
out." He was a brilliant artist with a rare gift of fancy, 
who, if he had had anything of Forster's practical nature, 

75 



76 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

would have made a fortune, and left a bigger name behind 
him than he did. But the artistic temperament was too 
strong in him, self-consciousness was a failing with him, it 
was not in him to "push" himself, and so he has suffered an 
effacement which ought not to have been his. He lacked 
those qualities of "push and go" which are worshipped with 
rather an excess of adoration in these days. He lacked any- 
thing like worldly ambition, and in 1839 refused a knight- 
hood. 

Dickens liked him immensely, and was frequently at his 
house, and the artist's son recalls the dinners at Clapham 
Rise, which, he says, "had a charm of their own." And 
Mrs. Cattermole speaks of the many kind and successful 
excursions that Dickens made to comfort and console him 
in the time of intense grief. "It was here," she says, "that 
Charles Dickens was the friend; he could 'weep with those 
that wept and rejoice with those that did rejoice.' He was 
indeed a man of magnanimous and practical sympathy." 

But, of course, Cattermole is known to Dickensians 
chiefly as one of the illustrators of Master Humphrey's 
Clock. It was in January 13, 1840, that Dickens wrote 
to him: 

"I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to 
you. My new periodical work appears ... on Satur- 
day the 28th of March. Instead of being published in 
monthly parts at a shilling each only, it will be pub- 
lished in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts 
at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators 
and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new 
one — I mean the plan of the fiction — and it will com- 
prehend a great variety of tales. . . . 

"Now, among other improvements, I have turned my 
attention to the illustrations, meaning to have wood- 
cuts dropped into the text and no separate plates. I 
want to know whether you would object to make me a 
little sketch for a woodcut — in indian ink would be 
quite sufficient — about the size of the enclosed scrap; 
the subject, and old quaint room with antique Eliza- 
bethan furniture, and in the chimney-corner an extra- 
ordinary old clock — the clock belonging to Master 



GEORGE CATTERMOLE 77 

Humphrey, in fact, and no figures. This I should drop 
into the text at the head of my opening page." 

And so Cattermole became an illustrator of The Old 
Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge. He did 39 of the 194 
illustrations for the Clock, and these comprised 14 for The 
Old Curiosity Shop, 15 for Barnaby Rudge, and 10 for the 
Clock chapters. For the most part he confined himself to 
the architectural subjects. How much Dickens appreciated 
his work is shown by what he wrote at the conclusion of The 
Old Curiosity Shop : 

"I cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, with- 
out saying that I deeply felt your hearty and most 
invaluable co-operation in the beautiful illustrations 
you have made for the last story, that I look at them 
with a pleasure I cannot describe to you in words, and 
that it is impossible for me to say how sensible I am 
of your earnest and friendly aid. Believe me that this 
is the very first time any designs for what I have 
written have touched and moved me, and caused me to 
feel that they expressed the idea I had in mind. I am 
most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you, and 
am full of pleasure and delight." 

Indeed, he asked for finished water-colour paintings of 
two of the illustrations, and here is his acknowledgment of 
their receipt : 

"It is impossible for me to tell you how greatly I am 
charmed with those beautiful pictures, in which the 
whole feeling and thought and expression of the little 
story is rendered to the gratification of my inmost 
heart ; and on which you have lavished those amazing 
resources of yours with a power at which I fairly won- 
dered when I sat down yesterday before them. 

"I took them to Mac, 1 straightway, in a cab, and 
it would have done you good if you could have seen and 
heard him. You can't think how moved he was by the 

1 Maclise. 



78 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

i 

old man in the church, or how pleased I was to have 
chosen it before he saw the drawings. 

"You are such a queer fellow and hold yourself so 
much aloof, that I am afraid to say half I would say 
touching my grateful admiration; so you shall imagine 
the rest." 

Reference was made to those paintings and to Catter- 
mole's aloofness in a letter written many years later (in 
1868) to the artist's wife when he was sick unto death. The 
old intimacy had passed away — owing to Cattermole's aloof- 
ness — but the old friendship remained: 

"My old affection for him has never cooled. The last 
time he dined with me, I asked him to come again that 
day ten years, for I was perfectly certain (this was my 
small joke) that I should not set eyes upon him sooner 
The time being fully up, I hope you will remind him, 
with my love, that he is due. His hand is upon these 
walls here, as I should like him to see for himself, and 
you to see for yourself, and in this hope I shall pursue 
his complete recovery." 

But it was not to be. The old friend had entered the 
Spirit World ere the year was out. 

Why Cattermole was never invited to illustrate any more 
of Dickens's books is a mystery that I cannot pretend to 
solve. But if the friends were never again to be thus asso- 
ciated, they were associated in another sphere of art, for 
Cattermole took part in some of the amateur theatricals. 

He played Wellbred in "Every Man in his Humour" at 
Miss Kelly's theatre in 1845, and retained the part in the 
subsequent performance at tne St. James's Theatre in No- 
vember, and again in the London and provincial perform- 
ances in 1847 on behalf of Leigh Hunt and John Poole. It 
is curious that Forster does not record the participation in 
these performances of so old and so close a friend. 

After this there is practically no record of the friendship. 
Cattermole's appearances in the social circle became very 
rare. But the friendship, as we have seen, remained un- 
affected, and in 1852 we find Dickens writing this delightful 
letter : 



GEORGE CATTERMOLE 79 

"I was going to let off a tremendous joke about the 
new number coming out by and bye resplendently 'in 
parts' (you perceive the subtle point?) when my spirits 
were dashed and my intention balked by your not hav- 
ing told me the sex — which was absolutely necessary to 
the elaboration of the idea. But for this notification I 
should have had nothing but pleasure in the receipt of 
your note, on account of the baby, on account of the 
mother, on account of the father, on account of the wel- 
come I give your handwriting and any sort of communi- 
cation with you, however shadowy — on all accounts and 
for all sorts of loving reasons. . . . Now, don't you 
think . . . don't you think you could manage to dine 
here at the family board either next Sunday or next 
Sunday after that at five exactly? ... If you come 
I'll ask Sloppy to meet you, and we'll have a leg of 
mutton from Tuckersesesesesesesesesesesesesis in the 
Strand, where I understand they are perpetually a 
hulloxinin of Devonshire sassageses round the corner." 

Forster does not quote this letter, but he explains the 
Joke. "Sloppy" was a character — a "waterman" at the 
i Sharing Cross cabstand, first discovered by Cattermole, 
I 'whose imitations of him were a delight to Dickens, and 
I idapted themselves in the exuberance of his admiration to 
hvery conceivable variety of subject." Forster adds: 
' 'Sloppy' had a friend 'Jack' in whom he was supposed to 
I ypify his own early and hard experiences before he became 
a convert to temperance; and Dickens used to point to 
'Jack' as the justification for himself and Mrs. Gamp for 
their portentous invention of Mrs. Harris. It is amazing 
nonsense to repeat, but to hear Cattermole, in the gruff 
hoarse accents of what seemed to be the remains of a deep 
^ass voice enveloped in wet straw, repeat the wild proceed- 
ings of 'Jack,' was not to be forgotten." 



CHAPTER XII 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 

It is not at all easy to arrive at any positive impressio 
as to what were Dickens's relations with Thackeray, wit] 
whom he was already well acquainted at this time, but 
seems clear that there was never an intimate friendship 
For years they were on terms of cordiality; Thackeray wa 
certainly a frequent visitor at Dickens's house from ver 
early days, and they got along together very well unt: 
Edmund Yates brought about an estrangement; but the 
were men of totally dissimilar temperaments and upbringing 
and it is difficult to conceive of a real intimacy ever havin 
existed. Thackeray had been well educated and moved i 
the atmosphere of the drawing-room and the club. Dicker 
"may be said to have educated himself" ; he belonged to 
totally different strata of Society, and could have had bi 
little in common with his great contemporary. The or 
viewed life, so to speak, from the stalls, the other from tl 
gallery. Thackeray's (superficially) cynical outlook 
life must have irritated Dickens, whose boisterous, w 
ashamed enjoyment of all good things could never ha^ 
been understandable to the other. 

One writer has said : "Dickens was a man of great vanit 
wholly, or almost wholly free from pride. Thackeray was 
man of great pride, wholly, or almost wholly without vanit 
Dickens was vain of his literary distinction ; Thackeray w 
too proud to be vain of his rank as an author. Indeed . . 
he seems to be always more than half ashamed of his callin 
Thackeray was without literary envy; Dickens had mo 
than a little of that great defect of the literary charact( 
Dickens was vain of his friendship with great folks ; Thac 
eray was too proud of his natural title to be one of thei 
selves to be vain of associating with the aristocracy." The 
is probably much truth in this. Thackeray's lack of pri 

80 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 81 

in his art was the most serious defect Dickens saw in him. 
In the "In Memoriam" article in the "Cornhill Magazine" 
Dickens wrote: 



"We had our differences of opinion. I thought that 
he too much feigned a want of earnestness, and that he 
made a pretence of undervaluing his art, which was not 
good for the art that he held in trust. But when we 
fell upon these topics it was never very gravely, and 
I have a lively image of him in my mind, twisting both 
his hands in his hair, and stamping about laughing, to 
make an end of the discussion." 

A lack of earnestness, real or feigned, was something with 
which Dickens had no patience at all, and whether we call 
it vanity or pride, he certainly held his art in the highest 
esteem, and was very jealous of it. 

Much has been made by many writers of a jealousy which 
they allege Thackeray entertained of Dickens, but I believe 
that no such feeling existed. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald tells us 
that in the 'fifties there were two "parties" in the literary 
world — a Thackeray party and a Dickens party; and that 
feeling ran high between them. That is true, but, we may be 
certain that the feeling did not extend to the men themselves. 
We have on record one or two outbursts of Thackeray's 
that most assuredly do not reflect the real spirit of the man. 
They are cherished by people who cannot re-create for us 
the circumstances or the tone of voice in which they were 
uttered, and if we were to judge Thackeray by them we 
should be doing him an injustice. James Cordy Jeaffre- 
son says: 

"It is certain that Thackeray, from the dawn of his 
celebrity to the last year of his life, was greatly desir- 
ous of surpassing Dickens in the world's favour, and 
at times was keenly annoyed by his inability to do so. 
I question whether Thackeray had a familiar friend 
who did not at some time or other hear the author of 
'Vanity Fair' speak of himself as Dickens's rival, and 
declare his chagrin at failing to out-rival him." 



82 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Lord William Lennox relates that one night he dined at a 
house where both Thackeray and Dickens were among the 
guests. After dinner, a young man, who sat next to Dickens 
and immediately opposite Thackeray, began to praise 
Dickens to his face in a fulsome manner. "All of a sudden," 
says the narrator of the incident, "Thackeray stopped in 
the midst of a sentence, turned his chair round as if to 
escape from the sound of the flatterer's tongue, and 
whispered, 'Do you hear that? I go nowhere but I am sub- 
ject to it. I should not mind Bulwer-Lytton praised to the 

skies, for I own my inferiority, but !' " Frankly, if I 

swallow this story at all, I do so with a spoonful of salt. 
Thackeray acknowledging inferiority to Lytton is beyond 
belief. 

We are told — and it is a much more credible story — that 
on one occasion Thackeray exclaimed: "Dickens is mak- 
ing ten thousand a year. He is very angry with me for 
saying so; but I will say it, for it is true. He doesn't like 
me. He knows that my books are a protest against his — 
that if the one set are true, the other must be false." But 
of this I am very sure ; there was nothing at all petty in his 
envy of Dickens. He was conscious of his greatness in his 
art, conscious, no doubt, of his superiority to Dickens in 
some respects, but no man more readily or more generously 
recognised and paid tribute to his great contemporary's 
genius. If there are on record many expressions of his envy, 
there are also on record many more expressions of his appre- 
ciation of Dickens's genius. Jeaffreson says that this envy 
was not a passion mean in itself: "An essentially and uni- 
formly generous passion, it was attended with a cordial 
recognition of the genius of Charles Dickens, and with 
enthusiastic admiration of his finer artistic achievements. 
Though he often spoke to me of Dickens and his literary 
doings, I never heard him utter a word of disparagement of 
the writer whom he laboured to outshine." He further 
records that Thackeray once said to him : "What is the use 
of my trying to run before that man? I cannot touch him — 
I can't get near him." Whilst on another occasion he said: 
"I am played out. All I can do now is to bring out my old 
puppets and put new bits of ribband on them. But if he 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 83 

lives to be ninety, Dickens will still be creating new char- 
acters. In his art that man is marvellous." 

James Payn tells us that "what Thackeray . . . wrote of 
Dickens he also certainly felt. I had once a long conversa- 
tion with him upon the subject; it was before the shadow 
(caused by a trivial matter, after all) had come between 
them, but I am sure that would not have altered his opinion. 
Of course, there were some points on which he was less en- 
thusiastic than on others ; the height of the literary pedestal 
on which Dickens sat was, he thought, for some reasons, to 
be deplored for his own sake. 'There is nobody to tell him 
when anything goes wrong,' he said ; 'Dickens is the Sultan, 
and Wills is his Grand Vizier' ; but on the whole his praise 
was as great as it was generous." 

And read this from Thackeray's own pen: 

"As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, the multiplied 
kindnesses which he has conferred upon us all, upon 
our children, upon people educated and uneducated, 
upon the myriads who speak our common tongue, have 
not you, have not I, all of us, reason to be thankful to 
this kind friend who so often cheered so many hours, 
brought pleasure and sweet laughter to so many homes, 
made such multitudes of children happy, endowed us 
with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair 
fancies, soft sympathies, hearty enjoyment? I may 
quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and a 
thousand times ; I delight and wonder at his genius. I 
recognise it — I speak with awe and reverence — a com- 
mission from that divine Beneficence Whose blessed task 
we know it will one day be to wipe every tear from 
every eye. Thankfully, I take my share of the feast of 
love and kindness which this noble and generous and 
charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the 
world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a benedic- 
tion for the meal." 

Verily, here is no evidence of a petty or ignoble envy. In 
his lecture on Sterne he said: "The foul satyr's eyes leer 
out of the leaves constantly. ... I think of these past 
writers, and of one who lives amongst us now, and am grate- 



84 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

ful for the innocent laughter and the sweet unsullied pages 
which the author of David Copperfield gives to my children." 
Then there is the famous eulogy of the Carol: 

"And now there is but one book left in the box, the 
smallest one ; but, oh ! how much the best of all. It is 
the work of the master of all the English humorists now 
alive; the young man who came and took his place 
calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has 
kept it. Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens since those 
half-dozen years, the store of happy hours that he has 
made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions 
whom he has introduced to us ; the harmless laughter, 
the generous wit, the frank, manly, human love which 
he has taught us to feel ! Every month of those years 
has brought us some kind token from this delightful 
genius. His books may have lost in art, but could we 
afford to wait? . . . Who can listen to objections re- 
garding such a book as this? It seems to me a national 
benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a per- 
sonal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it 
were women; neither knew the other or the author, and 
both said, by way of criticism ('God bless him!' ... As 
for Tiny Tim, . . . there is not a reader in England but 
that little fellow will be a bond of union between the 
author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, 
as the women just now, 'God bless him!' What a feel- 
ing is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a 
reward to reap !" 

Of David Copperfield he wrote in "Punch" : "How beauti- 
ful it is, how charmingly fresh and simple ! In those ad- 
mirable touches of tender humour — and I shall call humour, 
Bob, a mixture of love and wit — who can equal this great 
writer?" There is, too, the well-known story of how, going 
into the "Punch" office, he threw a copy of the fifth number 
of Dombey and Son on to the table before Mark Lemon, and 
exclaimed : "There's no writing against such power as this — 
one has no chance! Read the chapter describing young 
Paul's death: it is unsurpassed — it is stupendous." 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 85 

And finally, we have the story that he told in the course 
of one of his lectures in 1855. He was speaking of Dickens: 

"All children love him. I know two that do, and 
read his books ten times for once they peruse the dis- 
mal preachments of their father. I know one who, 
when she is happy, reads Nicholas Nickleby; when she is 
unhappy, reads Nicholas Nickleby; when she is tired, 
reads Nicholas Nickleby; when she is in bed, reads 
Nickolas Nickleby; when she has nothing to do, reads 
Nickolas Nickleby; and when she has finished the book, 
reads Nicholas Nickleby again. This critic, at ten 
years of age, said: 'I like Mr. Dickens's books better 
than yours, papa,' and frequently expressed her de- 
sire that the latter author should write a book like one 
of Mr. Dickens's books. Who can?" 






Has ever more charming tribute been paid by one 
author to another? It drew from Dickens the following 
acknowledgment : 

"I have read in 'The Times' to-day an account of 
your last night's lecture, and cannot refrain from as- 
suring you in all truth and earnestness that I am pro- 
foundly touched by your generous reference to me. I 
do not know how to tell you what a glow it spread 
over my heart. Out of its fulness I do entreat you to 
believe that I shall never forget your words of com- 
mendation. If you could wholly know at once how you 
have moved me, and how you have animated me, you 
would be the happier, I am sure." 

No; it may be — probably is — true that Thackeray felt 
annoyance at the fact that such popularity as Dickens had 
won was not his, but he was too great a man, he possessed 
too big a heart, to be capable of such petty jealousy as some 
writers suggest. Was there any such feeling on Dickens's 
side? How could there be? From the day that Sam Weller 
saw the light, Dickens, until the day of his death, was the 
idol of his countrymen, and his books sold better than the 
books of any other author in the world. Jeaffreson never 



86 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

met Dickens, and he was a friend of Thackeray's, so thatl 
on this point we may listen to him with confidence. He 
says that Dickens never regarded himself as a competitor l 
with Thackeray, and that "from the dawn of Thackeray's ! 
success to the hour of his death, the rivalry of the two 
novelists was a one-sided rivalry." He adds : "Jealousy 
does not appear to have been one of Dickens's failings. He | 
had quite as much reason to be jealous of Sir Edward 
Bulwer-Lytton and of Wilkie Collins, when they were in 
the fulness of their powers and popularity, as he had to be 
jealous of Thackeray; but he lived in friendliness with them, 
and invited them to write for him." 

Thackeray seems to have felt that Dickens did not like 
him personally. What reason he may have had I do not 
know, but it is difficult to believe that if it were true he 
would have been a welcome guest at Dickens's home for 
twenty years. At any rate, we do know that when Thack- 
eray was going to America Dickens came to London from 
Folkstone especially to preside at the farewell dinner. 
Forster tells us that there was a muster of more than sixty 
admiring entertainers, and that "Dickens's speech gave 
happy expression to the spirit that animated all, telling 
Thackeray not alone how much his friendship was prized 
by those present, and how proud they were of his genius, but 
offering him in the name of tens of thousands absent who 
had never touched his hand or seen his face, lifelong thanks 
for the treasures of mirth, wit, and wisdom within the 
yellow-covered numbers of 'Pendennis' and 'Vanity Fair.' " 
And in 1858, when Thackeray presided at the annual dinner 
of the General Theatrical Fund, Dickens, in proposing his 
health, said: 

"From the earliest days of this institution I have 
ventured to impress on its managers, that they would 
consult its credit and success by choosing its chairmen 
as often as possible within the circle of literature and 
the arts ; and I will venture to say that no similar 
institution has been so presided over by so many re- 
markable and distinguished men. I am sure, however, 
that it never has had, and that it never will have, 
simply because it cannot have, a greater lustre cast 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 87 

upon it than by the presence of the noble English 
writer who fills the chair to-night. It is not for me 
at this time, and in this place, to take on myself to 
flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr. 
Thackeray's books, and to tell you to observe how 
full they are of wit and wisdom, how out-speaking, and 
how devoid of fear or favour; but I will take leave to 
remark, in paying my due homage and respect to them, 
that it is fitting that such a writer and such an institu- 
tion should be brought together. Every writer of fic- 
tion, although he may not adopt the dramatic form, 
writes, in effect, for the stage. He may never write 
plays ; but the truth and passion which are in him must 
be more or less reflected in the great mirror which he 
holds up to nature. Actors, managers, and authors 
are all represented in this company, and it may be sup- 
posed that they have all studied the deep wants of the 
human heart in many theatres ; but none of them could 
have studied its mysterious workings in any theatre to 
greater advantage than in the bright and airy pages of 
'Vanity Fair.' To this skilful showman who has so 
often delighted us, and who has charmed us again to- 
night, we have now to wish God-speed, and that he may 
continue for many years to exercise his potent art. To 
him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter, God bless 
him !" 

Temperamentally, I suppose, no two men could be more 
unlike than Dickens and Thackeray, but we may be sure 
of this — that Dickens never subscribed to the very common 
but very superficial judgment of Thackeray as a cynic. 
Ruskin says: "Those who are naturally proud and envious 
will learn from Thackeray to despise humanity; those who 
are naturally gentle to pity it; those who are naturally 
shallow to laugh at it." This is truer than many of Ruskin's 
literary judgments, but there is no profundity in it. If it 
is true that all great works of art reveal the personalities of 
their authors, then "The Newcomes," and "Pendennis," and 
"Vanity Fair" tell us that Thackeray was a man of won- 
derful tenderness, with a genuine love for humanity. His 
early sorrow had not embittered him, and if he laughed at 



88 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

humanity, it was always a sweet and tender laugh of tolera- 
tion. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, as Dickens, 
perhaps, was apt to do, but beneath the apparently cynical 
smile there was an almost womanly sensitiveness. As 
"Punch" said, when he died: 

". . . if he smiled 
His smile had more of sadness than of mirth — 
But more of love than either." 

Trollope was a very enthusiastic Thackeray worshipper, 
but there is no exaggeration in the following: 

"He who knew Thackeray will have a vacancy in 
his heart's innermost casket which must remain vacant 
till he dies. One loved him almost as one loves a woman, 
tenderly, and with thoughtfulness — thinking of him 
when away from him as a source of joy that cannot be 
analysed, but is full of comfort." 

We may be sure that Dickens never entertained any feel- 
ing of dislike for such a man. The truth is much more 
likely to be that Thackeray never really understood the 
author of Pickwick. 

The first meeting of these two novelists is historic. 
Thackeray himself told the story at a Royal Academy 
banquet at which Dickens was present. Responding to the 
toast of "Literature," he said: 

"Had it not been for the direct action of my friend 
who has just sat down, I should most likely never have 
been included in the toast which you have been pleased 
to drink, and I should have tried to be not a writer, 
but a painter or designer of pictures. That was the 
object of my early ambition. I can remember when Mr. 
Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced 
delighting the world with some charming humorous 
works . . . that this young man wanted an artist to 
illustrate his writings ; and I recollect walking up to his 
chambers in Furnival's Inn, with two or three drawings 
in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suit- 
able. But for the unfortunate blight which came over 
my artistical existence, it would have been my pride 




W. M. Thackeray 



I Ml 




Dickens and His Friends in Cornwall 

The Carriage Contains Daniel Maclise, Clarkson Stanfield, Charles Dickens and John Forster 

From a Sketch by W. M. Thackeray 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 89 

and my pleasure one day to find a place on these walls 
for one of my performances." 

One hesitates to hazard a guess at how much those draw- 
ings would fetch if they could be put on the market to-day. 
It is not the least of the debts that the world owes to 
Dickens that it was he who drove Thackeray to write, and 
thus to enrich our literature and to give us such friends 
as Col. Newcombe and Major Dobbin. It is said, indeed, 
that at the time Thackeray remarked, "Well, if you won't 
let me draw, I will write." 

The next time they met was at Harrison Ainsworth's 
house, and then we read of Thackeray as one of the welcome 
visitors at Twickenham in 1838. Thackeray endeared him- 
self to Dickens's children: for this "cynic" was ever in his 
element when in the company of the little ones, and we have 
Mrs. Perugini's word for it that he was loved by her and 
by her brothers and sisters. He was a guest at the Chil- 
dren's Theatricals at Tavistock House, and Forster records 
how, on hearing one of the youngsters sing the ballad of 
Miss Villikins, the author of "Vanity Fair" rolled off his 
chair "in a burst of laughter that became absurdly con- 
tagious." 

In 1849 Thackeray was present at the dinner to celebrate 
the publication of the first number of David Copperfield. 
We read, too, of pleasant meetings in France. And here 
it should just be recalled that although Thackeray was not 
one of the party that made the Cornish trip in 1842, he pro- 
duced a souvenir of that memorable jaunt in the shape of a 
rough drawing depicting Dickens, Forster, Stanfield and 
Maclise in the carriage in which they did their travelling. 
That they were certainly very good friends at this time is 
shown by the fact that in 1843 Dickens presented Thackeray 
with a copy of the Carol with the following autograph in- 
scription: "W. M. Thackeray, from Charles Dickens 
(whom he made very happy once a long way from home)." 
I have been unable to trace the allusion here. That copy of 
the Carol has an interesting history, for, when, after 
Thackeray's death, his belongings were sold by auction, 
Queen Victoria sent an unlimited commission to buy it, be- 
coming its possessor for £25 10s. 



90 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

It is an ever-to-be-regretted fact that the friendship be- 
tween these two great men should have been severed through 
the unmannerly conduct of a young journalist who, at the 
time, at any rate, was of no importance. Yates had started 
a paper called "Town Talk," and to this, in the autumn of 
1858, he contributed an article on Thackeray. That arti- 
cle contained the following: 

"No one meeting him can fail to recognise in him a 
gentleman ; his bearing is cold and uninviting, his style 
of conversation either openly cynical or affectedly 
good-natured and benevolent; his bonhommie is forced, 
his wit biting, his pride easily touched ; but his appear- 
ance is invariably that of the cool, suave, well-bred 
gentleman, who, whatever may be rankling within, 
suffers no surface display of his emotions. . . . His 
success with 'Vanity Fair' culminated with his 'Lec- 
tures on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury,' which were attended by all the court and fashion 
of London. The prices were extravagant, the lecturer's 
adulation of birth and position was extravagant, the 
success was extravagant. No one succeeds better than 
Mr. Thackeray in cutting his coat according to his 
cloth. Here he flattered the aristocracy; but when he 
crossed the Atlantic, George Washington became the 
idol of his worship, the 'Four Georges' the objects of 
his bitterest attacks. . . . Our own opinion is, that his 
success is on the wane. . . . There is a want of heart in 
all he writes, which is not to be balanced by the most 
brilliant sarcasm and the most perfect knowledge of 
the workings of the human heart." 

There can be no two opinions: this article was grossly 
offensive. It may be said that Thackeray might have 
ignored the rudeness of an unimportant young journalist, 
but Yates and he were members of the same club, and I can- 
not but think that he acted in the only possible way. He 
wrote to Yates : 

"As I understand your phrases, you impute insin- 
cerity to me when I speak good-naturedly in private, 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 91 

assign dishonourable motives to mc for sentiments which 
I have delivered in public, and charge me with advan- 
cing statements which I have never delivered at all. Had 
your remarks been written by a person unknown to me, 
I should have noticed them no more than other 
calumnies ; but as we have shaken hands more than once 
and met hitherto on friendly terms (you may ask one 

of your employers, Mr. , whether I did not speak 

of you very lately in the most friendly manner), 1 am 
obliged to take notice of articles which I consider to be 
not offensive and unfriendly merely, but slanderous and 
untrue. We meet at a club where, before you were 
born, I believe, I and other gentlemen have been in the 
habit of talking without any idea that our conversa- 
tion would supply paragraphs for professional vendors 
of 'Literary Talk' ; and I don't remember that out of 
that club I have ever exchanged six words with you. 
Allow me to inform you that the talk which you have 
heard there is not intended for newspaper remark, and 
to beg — as I have a right to do — that y ou will refrain 
from printing comments upon my private conversa- 
tions ; that you will forego discussions, however 
blundering, upon my private affairs; and that you will 
henceforth please to consider any question of my per- 
sonal truth and sincerity as quite out of the province 
of your criticism." 

Yates, writing long afterwards, says : "I think it must be 
admitted by the most impartial reader that this letter is 
severe to the point of cruelty ; that whatever the silliness and 
impertinence of the article, it was scarcely calculated to have 
provoked so curiously bitter an outburst of personal feeling 
against its writer ; that in comparison with the offence com- 
mitted by me the censure administered by Mr. Thackeray 
is almost ludicrously exaggerated." I cannot follow the 
argument. Yates's article had been not merely silly and 
impertinent; it had been libellous; it had impugned the per- 
sonal honour of one of the best-known men of the time. If 
Yates had promptly apologised the matter would have gone 
no further. But, with all the "cleverness" and "smartness" 
of youth, he "put himself on his dignity" and adopted an 



92 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

utterly impossible attitude. He drafted a reply to Thack- 
eray's letter, reminding that writer how he himself had 
lampooned many of his fellow-authors. The letter was never 
sent — unhappily, as Yates says. He submitted it to 
Dickens, and Dickens was of opinion that it was "too flip- 
pant and too violent." Together they compiled the follow- 
ing letter, which was duly forwarded: 

"I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter. . . . 
You will excuse my pointing out to you that it is absurd 
to suppose me bound to accept your angry 'understand- 
ing' of my 'phrases.' I do not accept it in the least: I 
altogether reject it. I cannot characterise your letter 
in any other terms than those in which you characterise 
the article which has given you so much offence. If your 
letter to me were not both 'slanderous and untrue,' I 
should readily have discussed its subject with you and 
avowed my earnest and frank desire to set right any- 
thing I may have left wrong. Your letter being what 
it is, I have nothing to add to my present reply." 

The article had been libellous ; this letter was both "silly" 
and "impertinent." It is astounding that Dickens could 
have assisted in the drafting of it. If Thackeray's letter 
had been four times as severe as it was, that would not have 
altered the fact that Yates had been guilty of inexcusable 
conduct, and could not have released him from the obliga- 
tions of a gentleman. On the receipt of this letter, Thacke- 
ray decided to take more drastic action. He reported the 
matter to the Committee of the Garrick Club — the club re- 
ferred to in his letter. The Committee decided that "the 
practice of publishing such articles, being reflections by one 
member of the club against any other, will be fatal to the 
comfort of the club, and is intolerable in a society of gentle- 
men." There surely can be no disputing such a proposition. 
Yates was called upon either to make an ample apology or 
to retire from the club. He declined to do either, and ap- 
pealed to a General Meeting. At that meeting, Dickens, 
Wilkie Collins, and Samuel Lover were among those who 
spoke in his defence, but the decision went against him. He 
then started an action at law. It was at this stage that 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 93 

Dickens made his serious mistake. He had all through acted 
as Yates's leading counsel, yet now he actually proposed to 
act as a mediator. He wrote to Thackeray: 



Can any conference be held between me, as representing 
Mr. Yates, and an appointed friend of yours, as repre- 
senting you, with the hope and purpose of some quiet 
accommodation of this deplorable matter, which will 
satisfy the feelings of all concerned? 

"It is right that, in putting this to you, I should tell 
you that Mr. Yates, when you first wrote to him, 
brought your letter to me. He had recently done me a 
manly service I can never forget, in some private dis- 
tress of mine (generally within your knowledge), and he 
naturally thought of me as his friend in an emergency. 
I told him that his article was not to be defended; but 
I confirmed him in his opinion that it was not reason- 
ably possible for him to set right what was amiss, on 
the receipt of a letter couched in the very strong terms 
you employed. 

"When you appealed to the Garrick Committee, and 
they called their General Meeting, I said at that meet- 
ing that you and I had been on good terms for many 
years, and that I was very sorry to find myself opposed 
to you; but that I was clear that the Committee had 
nothing on earth to do with it, and that on the strength 
of my conviction I should go against them. 

"If this mediation that I have suggested can take 
place, I shall be heartily glad to do my best in it — 
and God knows in no hostile spirit towards any one, 
least of all to you. If it cannot take place, the thing 
is at least no worse than it was; and you will burn this 
letter, and I will burn your answer." 

Of course it could not take place. It was a most futile 
proposition, seeing that Dickens held such strong views. 
Thackeray replied: 

"I grieve to gather from your letter that you were 
Mr. Yates's adviser in the dispute between me and hinu 



94 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

His letter was the cause of my appeal to the Garrick 
Club for protection from insults against which I had 
no other remedy. 

"I placed my grievance before the Committee of the 
Garrick Club as the only place where I have been accus- 
tomed to meet Mr. Yates. They gave their opinion of 
his conduct and of the reparation which lay in his power. 
Not satisfied with their sentence, Mr. Yates called for 
a General Meeting ; and, the meeting which he had called 
having declared against him, he declines the jurisdiction 
which he had asked for, and says he will have recourse 
to lawyers. 



"Ever since I submitted my case to the club, I have 
had, and can have, no part in the dispute. It is for 
them to judge if any reconcilement is possible with 
your friend." 

He added that he had forwarded Dickens's letter to the 
Committee of the club, and enclosed a copy of his covering 
letter. In the latter he had written that he was still, as 
ever, prepared to abide by their decision. What other reply 
could he have given to Dickens? The Committee did not 
accept the latter's offer. The legal proceedings fell through 
on a technicality, but Yates resigned his membership of the 
club, and Dickens walked out with him. 

The whole story is a sorry one, and I scarcely think it 
can be wondered at if the knowledge of the part played by 
Dickens embittered Thackeray. An estrangement ensued 
that lasted for years. Yates says : "There is no doubt it 
was pretty generally said at the time, as it has been said 
since, and is said even now, that this whole affair was a 
struggle for supremacy or an outburst of jealousy between 
Thackeray and Dickens, and that my part was merely that 
of a scapegoat or shuttlecock." This is nonsense, for when 
Thackeray first reported the matter to the Committee of the 
Garrick Club, he had no suspicion that Dickens was behind 
Yates. 

What were Dickens's feelings we do not know, but we do 
know — on the evidence of Dickens's daughter — that after a 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 95 

time Thackeray entertained feelings of genuine regret at the 
estrangement, and on more than one occasion expressed to 
her a wish that there could be a reconciliation. It came 
eventually, and it was the "cynic" who made the first ad- 
vance. Sir Theodore Martin was a witness of the incident. 
He was standing, he tells us, talking to Thackeray in the 
hall of the Athenaeum Club, when Dickens came out of the 
room where he had been reading the morning papers, and, 
passing close to them without making any sign of recog- 
nition, crossed the hall to the staircase that led to the library. 
Suddenly, Thackeray broke away, and reached Dickens just 
as the latter had his foot on the staircase. 

"Dickens turned to him, and I saw Thackeray speak 
and presently hold out his hand to Dickens. They 
shook hands, a few words were exchanged, and imme- 
diately Thackeray returned to me, saying, 'I'm glad 
I have done this : I said, "It is time this foolish estrange- 
ment should cease, and that we should be to each other 
what we used to be. Come ; shake hands." ' Dickens, 
he said, seemed at first rather taken aback, but held 
out his hand, and some friendly words were exchanged. 
Thackeray also said, 'I love the man, and I could not 
resist the impulse.' " 

Thirteen days later Dickens was standing at the graveside 
of his friend in Kensal Green cemetery. In September 1870, 
three months after Dickens himself had been laid to rest, 
an anonymous writer in "Harper's Magazine" recorded: "I 
remember Dickens at the grave of Thackeray. ... On the 
day when that great and true man was laid in his grave in 
Kensal Green . . . Dickens had a look of bereavement in 
his face which was indescribable. When all others had turned 
aside from the grave he still stood there, as if rooted to the 
spot, watching with almost haggard eyes every spadeful of 
dust that was thrown upon it. Walking away with some 
friends, he began to talk, but presently in some sentence his 
voice quivered a little, and shaking hands all round rapidly 
he went off alone." 

That chance meeting at the Athenaeum Club must have 



96 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

been held by Dickens in precious remembrance when he wrote 
shortly afterwards in the "Cornhill Magazine" : 

"The last words he ever corrected in print were, 'And 
my heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss.' God grant 
that on that Christmas Eve, when he laid his head back 
on his pillow and threw up his hands, as he was wont 
to do when very weary, some consciousness of duty done, 
and Christian hope throughout life humbly cherished, 
may have caused his own heart to throb when he passed 
away to his Redeemer's rest!" 



CHAPTER XIII 



DOUGLAS JERROLD 



With Douglas Jerrold, Dickens undoubtedly had much 
more in common than with Thackeray, and there were very 
few of his friends whom he held in greater esteem. To the 
average man of the present generation Jerrold is hardly a 
figure of flesh and blood. It is a pity, because in reality, 
beneath his cold exterior, behind the biting wit, there beat a 
tender heart ; behind the satirist, there was a man of a lovable 
and winsome nature, who could be the most delightful of 
companions and truest of friends to those who had once won 
his confidence. And who more likely to win his confidence 
than the Boz of the late 'thirties and early 'forties? Both 
had studied in hard schools, and both had come out of the 
ordeal with a passionate desire to do something to make 
the world brighter for those who should come after them. 
Those early experiences had made Jerrold angry with the 
world; they had not taught him the broad, good-humoured 
tolerance that they had taught Dickens, but they had made 
him, as they had made the other, tender and sympathetic 
towards those who suffered from the world's cruelty and neg- 
lect. To a man of Jerrold's nature, the friendship of 
Dickens must have meant much. And he valued it: saving 
only Blanchard's, there was no friendship that he valued 
more. And that Dickens had a great regard for him, there 
is plenty of evidence to show. 

Yet even Dickens could not win Jerrold's confidence at 
once. They met first in 1835, and in 1844 we find Dickens 
writing: "I wish we had not lost so much time in improving 
our personal knowledge of each other." They had been 
friends all those nine years, but there had been none of that 
mutual confidence which is the highest manifestation of 
friendship. Henceforth, however, it existed, and with a brief 
unhappy interruption, it lasted to the end. 

97 



98 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Macready mentions many dinner-parties at which the 
friends were present, and Blanchard Jerrold, in his biog- 
raphy of his father, recalls a happy evening at his home 
when the host and Dickens and Forster and Maclise and 
Macready "indulged in a most active game of leap-frog, 
the backs being requested to turn in any obtrusive 'two- 
penny,' with the real zest of fourteen !" And he adds : 
"Never were boys more completely possessed of the spirit 
of the game in a seminary playground." It is not easy to 
conjure up the picture in its completeness. Dickens and 
Maclise and Forster? — yes; Jerrold? — h'm, well, yes; but 
Macready ! — the staid and sedate W. C. M. playing at leap- 
frog! It almost baffles imagination! 

In 1843 Dickens and Jerrold had an amusing correspond- 
ence. Benjamin Webster set the ball rolling by offering a 
prize of £500 for the best five-act comedy. Jerrold allowed 
his wit to play round this, and rallied all his friends as pos- 
sible competitors. To Dickens he wrote: 

"Of course, you have flung Chuzzlewit to the winds, 
and are hard at work upon a comedy. Somebody — I 
forget his name — told me that you were seen at the 
Haymarket door, with a wet newspaper in your hand, 
knocking frantically for Webster. . . . Mind, you 
must send in your play by Michaelmas — it is thought 
Michaelmas day itself will be selected by many of the 
competitors; for, as there will be about five hundred 
(at least) comedies, and as the Committee cannot read 
above two at a sitting, how — unless, indeed, they raffle 
for choice — can they select the true thing — the phcenix 
from the geese — by January 1st, 1844? You must make 
haste, so don't go out o' nights." 

To which Dickens entered into the spirit of the fooling, 
as he so well knew how to do, replied as follows: 

"Yes, you have anticipated my occupation. Chuzzle- 
wit be d — d. High comedy and five hundred pounds 
are the only matters I can think of. I call it The One 
Thing Needful, or A Part is Better than a Whole. 



DOUGLAS JERROLD 99 

"But I have my comedy to fly to. My only comfort ! 
I walk up and down the street at the back of the theatre 
every night and peep in at the green-room window, 
thinking of the time when 'Dickens' will be called for 
by excited hundreds, and won't come till Mr. Webster 
. . . shall enter from his dressing room, and quelling 
the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard, if he be 
in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept 
the congratulations of the audience, and indulge them 
with a sight of the man who has got five hundred 
pounds in money, and it's impossible to say how much 
in laurel. Then I shall come forward, and bow once — 
twice — thrice — roars of approbation — Brayvo — brarvo 
— hooray — hoorar — hooroar — one cheer more ; and ask- 
ing Webster home to supper, shall declare eternal friend- 
ship for that public-spirited individual . . . 

"I am always, my dear Jerrold, 
"Faithfully your Friend, 
"The Congreve op the Nineteenth Century 
(which I mean to be called in the Sunday papers). 

"P.S. — I shall dedicate it to Webster, beginning : 'My 
dear Sir, — When you first proposed to stimulate the 
slumbering dramatic talent of England, I assure you I 
had not the least idea,' — etc., etc., etc." 

Dickens and Jerrold had a true admiration for each 
other's work. Several times Dickens writes appreciatively of 
his friend's books, and Forster tells us that he derived special 
enjoyment from "The Story of a Feather." Jerrold's admi- 
ration of his friend's work was no less enthusiastic. In 1843 
he wrote a most appreciative notice of the Carol in "Punch," 
and in other journals with which he was associated he paid 
tribute to Dickens's genius. 

The "Punch" notice of the Carol drew from Dickens (then 
at Cremona) a long letter in which he wrote: "It, was very 
hearty and good of you, Jerrold, to make that affectionate 
mention of the Carol in 'Punch,' and I assure you it was not 
lost on the distant object of your manly regard, but touched 
him as you wished and meant it should." The letter also 
included this hearty invitation: 



100 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"You rather entertained a notion once of coming to 
see me at Genoa. I shall return straight, on the ninth 
of December, limiting my stay in town to one week. 
Now couldn't you come back with me? One journey, 
that way, is very cheap, costing little more than twelve 
pounds; and I am sure the gratification to you would 
be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful place, and 
could put you in a painted room, as big as a church 
and much more comfortable. There are pens and ink 
upon the premises, orange trees, gardens, battledores 
and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires for evenings, and 
a welcome worth having. 

"Come ! . . . Letter from a gentleman in a country 
gone to sleep to a gentleman in a country that would 
go to sleep too, and never wake again, if some people 
had their way. You can work in Genoa. The house is 
used to it. It is exactly a week's post. Have that port- 
manteau looked to, and when we meet, say: *I am 



coming 



i» " 



The temptation to the hard-worked and none too affluent 
Douglas Jerrold must have been sore indeed. The forth- 
coming meeting referred to in this letter was that historic 
gathering at Forster's home on December 2, 1844, when 
Dickens read The Chimes to a few of his most intimate 
friends. Jerrold was there at the novelist's express wish — 
"Jerrold I should particularly wish," he had written to 
Forster. And in the letter from which he had just quoted 
he had conveyed the invitation in these words : "Forster has 
told you, or will tell you, that I very much wish you to hear 
my little Christmas book; and I hope you will meet me at 
his bidding in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I have tried to strike 
a blow upon that part of the brass countenance of wicked 
Cant; when such a compliment is sorely needed at this time, 
and I trust that the result of my training is at least the 
exhibition of a strong desire to make it a staggerer. If 
you should think at the end of the four rounds (there are 
no more) that the said Cant in the language of 'Bell's Life,' 
'comes up piping,' I shall be very much the better for it." 

Upon his return to Italy, Dickens renewed the invitation, 
and at last Jerrold was able to respond. He and Forster 



DOUGLAS JERROLD 101 

and Maclise met Dickens at Brussels on his way home, and 
the party passed a delightful week in Flanders. Writing 
of that week long after, Dickens said: "He was the delight 
of the children all the time, and they were his delight. He 
was in his most brilliant spirits and I doubt if he were ever 
more humorous in his life. But the most enduring im- 
pression that he left upon us who are grown up — and we 
have all often spoken of it since — was that Jerrold, in his 
amiable capacity of being easily pleased, in his freshness, 
in his good nature, in his cordiality and in the unrestrained 
openness of his heart, had quite captivated us." 

In subsequent years, when Dickens was in France and 
Italy writing Dombey, he extended further invitations to 
his friend. To a letter containing one of these invitations, 
Jerrold replied: 

"Let me break this long silence with heartiest con- 
gratulation. Your book has spoken like a trumpet to 
the nation, and it is to me a pleasure to believe that 
you have faith in the sincerity of my gladness at your 
triumph. You have rallied your old thousands again; 
and, what is most delightful, you have rebuked and for- 
ever 'put down* the small things, half knave, half fool, 
that love to make the failure they 'feed on.' They are 
under your boot — tread 'em to paste." 

Then, after explaining that he had not written before 
because he had hoped against hope to be able to accept the 
invitation, he continued: 

"And so time went on, and Dombey comes out, and 
now, to be sure, I write. Had Dombey fallen apoplectic 
from the steam-press of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, 
of course your letter would still have remained unan- 
swered. But, with all England shouting 'Viva Dickens,' 
it is a part of my gallant nature to squeak through my 
quill, 'brayvo,' too." 

Dickens's reply was as hearty: 

"This day week, I finished my little Christmas book 1 
(writing towards the close the exact words of a pas- 

» The Cricket on the Hearth. 



102 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

sage in your affectionate letter received this morning: 
to wit, 'after all, life has something serious in it') and 
ran over here for a week's rest. I cannot tell you how 
much true gratification I have had in your most hearty 
letter. Forster told me that the same spirit breathed 
through a notice of Dombey in your paper ; and I have 
been saying since to Kate and Georgy that there is no 
such good way of testing the worth of literary friend- 
ship as by comparing its influence on one's view with 
any that literary animosity can produce. Mr. W. will 
throw me into a violent fit of anger for the moment, 
it is true; but his acts and deeds pass into the death 
of all bad things next day, and right out of my memory ; 
whereas a generous sympathy like yours is ever present 
to me, ever fresh and new to me — always stimulating, 
cheerful and delightful. The pain of unjust malice 
is lost in an hour. The pleasure of a generous friend- 
ship is the steadiest joy in the world. What a glorious 
and comfortable thing that is to think of!" 

In 1856 Jerrold was once more able to snatch a brief holi- 
day, and he spent some weeks with Dickens and Wilkie Collins 
at Boulogne. But it was not always Dickens who was the 
tempter, as witness the following: 

"My dear Dickens, 

"When, when we can count upon a dry after- 
noon, won't you and the Hidalgo and Mac. — and the 
ladies, come down here" (Putney Lower Common) "to 
a cut of country lamb and a game of bowls? Our turf 
is coming up so velvety. I intend to have a waistcoat 
sliced from it, trimmed with daisies. ... I wish you 
could see (and eat) the dish of strawberries just 
brought in for breakfast by my girl Polly — 'all,' as 
she says, 'big and square as pincushions.' " 

In 1845 Jerrold was associated with Dickens in two of the 
most notable undertakings of the novelist's life. He was one 
of the founders of the "Daily News," and he was one of the 
instigators of the amateur theatricals. He was, in fact, 
almost the first to agree to serve under Dickens on the 



DOUGLAS JERROLD 103 

"Daily News," and he was appointed a leader-writer. He 
was very active in the preparations, and enthusiastic for the 
success of the undertaking. On the first night (in January 
1846), he was a frequent and anxious visitor to the compos- 
ing-room. When the paper had been printed, and started on 
its great career, around the "stone" in that room, 

"there gathered ... an assembly of which Charles 
Dickens was the chief and informal president, and of 
which his various writers and the leading persons con- 
cerned in the newly established paper were the principal 
members. It was an interesting group, and the bulk 
of the little throng consisted of the compositors by 
whom the 'Daily News' had been set up. The object 
was to drink success to the enterprise, and a few pithy 
speeches were made. Charles Dickens probably ex- 
patiated in terms of general brotherhood, and invited 
the sympathy of the men of toil with the men of mind, 
whose efforts were to be devoted in this new channel 
for the common good. But a more express record has 
remained of a word spoken by Douglas Jerrold. His 
was a fit figure for such a scene. As he stood by the 
*stone,' frail of build, with eager eyes, aquiline face and 
with hair flying back from his forehead down to his 
shoulders, he brought his fist down with a bang as he 
told the men, with emotion which was long remembered 
among them, how he had 'worked his way up through 
stony-hearted London.' " * 

But it is by his association with the amateur theatricals 
that Jerrold is best known to Dickensians. I think it a sage 
assumption that it was he and Clarkson Stanfield who really 
instigated those performances. Long years before, these 
two had been comrades on board H.M.S. "Namur" ; Jerrold 
had been middy, Stanfield foremast man. In those days they 
had frequently got up theatricals. Jerrold left the service 
in 1815, and the two met no more until they were brought 
face to face in 1832 at a rehearsal of Jerrold's "The Rent 
Day." Stanfield was the scene painter. The old friendship 
was renewed. Blanchard Jerrold writes: 

"Some years hence, they shall be sauntering in Rich- 
i "The 'Daily News' Jubilee." 



104 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

mond Park. . . . There shall be other friends with them. 
Matters theatricals shall bubble up in the careless ebb 
and flow of the conversation; and suddenly the 'Naraur' 
middy . . . shall cry — 'Let's have a play, Stanfield, 
like we had on board the "Namur." ' Hence those many 
merry evenings passed among cordial friends ; those 
hearty laughs over gross stage blunders, those genial 
suppers after rehearsals, those curious evenings spent 
upon the stage of Miss Kelly's little theatre, when the 
little figure of the 'Namur' midshipman might be dimly 
seen in the centre of the dark pit, all alive; but the 
presence of which was most authoritatively proved very 
often, when a clear voice chirped to the laughing actors 
some pungent witticism or queer turn of thought, pro- 
voking 'What, are you there, Jerrold?' as a good- 
natured reply from the victim." 

The suggestion having once been made, Dickens, whose 
enthusiasm had been kindled by the amateur theatricals in 
Canada, entered into the scheme with all the zest of which 
he was capable, when he returned from Italy in the following 
year. Miss Kelly's theatre was taken, and "Every Man in 
His Humour" was the play selected, Jerrold taking the part 
of Master Stephen. Macready tells us that he did it very 
badly, but Macready's criticism and condemnations must not 
be taken too literally, and in this case he is not supported 
by any member who has left any record of that evening in 
September 1846. Then followed the performances on behalf 
of Leigh Hunt and John Poole. The net proceeds of these 
were five hundred guineas. This was not so much as had 
been hoped, so Dickens conceived the idea of increasing it 
by writing, in the character of Mrs. Gamp, an account of 
the journey to the north and of the performances. "It was 
to be," says Forster, "a new 'Pilgrims' Progress.' . . . 
Mrs. Gamp was to have always an invincible animosity 
towards Jerrold, for Caudle reasons." The first pages were 
written, but the artists who were to have illustrated the thing 
seem to have lacked enthusiasm, and so it was never com- 
pleted. But in the fragment that Forster preserved, Mrs. 
Gamp expressed her feelings towards Jerrold in the following 
terms : 



DOUGLAS JERROLD 105 

"Mrs. Harris, when I see that little willain bodily 
before me, it give me such a turn that I was all in a 
tremble. If I hadn't lost my umbereller in the cab, I 
must have done him a injury with it! Oh the bragian 
little traitor ! right among the ladies, Mrs. Harris ; look- 
ing his wickedest and deceitfullest of eyes while he was 
a-talking to 'em; laughing at his own jokes as loud as 
you please; holding his hat in one hand to cool his- 
self, and tossing back his iron-grey mop of a head of 
hair with the other, as if it was so much shavings — 
there, Mrs. Harris, I see him, getting encouragement 
from the pretty delooded creeturs, which never know'd 
that sweet saint, Mrs. C, as I did, and being treated 
with as much confidence as if he'd never wiolated none 
of the domestic ties, and never showed up nothing! Oh 
the aggrawation of that Dougledge! Mrs. Harris, if 
I hadn't apologized to Mr. Wilson, and put a little 
bottle to my lips which was in my pocket for the jour- 
ney, and which it is very rare indeed I have about me, 
I could not have abared the sight of him — there, Mrs. 
Harris ! I could not ! — I must have tore him, or have 
give way and fainted." 

In the performances of 1848, in aid of the fund for the 
endowment of a perpetual curatorship of Shakespeare's home, 
Jerrold took no part, but he was to the fore again in 1851, 
in the Guild of Literature and Art performances, playing 
Mr. Shadowly Softhead in Lytton's "Not so Bad as we 
Seem," at Devonshire House, and taking equally prominent 
parts during the provincial tour. 

After this "Splendid Strolling," there arrived that un- 
happy estrangement to which reference has been made. What 
was its cause, we shall never know, but we have Dickens's 
assurance that it was not on any personal subject, and did 
not involve an angry word. But months passed and they did 
not even see each other. And then the clouds were swept 
away. The old friends met in a London club. Each was 
with his own party, and they sat back to back without any 
recognition. Suddenly, however, Jerrold swung his chair 
round and with outstretched hands exclaimed, "For God's 
sake, let us be friends again. A life's not long enough for 



106 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

this." Those outstretched hands were grasped as lovingly 
as they had been offered, and the sun of friendship was never 
more obscured. A couple of years later, Jerrold was dead, 
Gnd Dickens was writing to his son: 

"Few of his friends, I think, can have had more 
favourable opportunities of knowing him in his gentlest 
and most affectionate aspect, than I had. He was one 
of the gentlest and most affectionate of men. I remem- 
ber very well that when I first saw him about the year 
1835, when I went into his sick room in Brittle Grove, 
Brompton, I found him propped up in a great chair, 
bright-eyed and quick and eager in spirit, but very lame 
in body, he gave me an impression of tenderness. It 
never became disassociated from him. There was noth- 
ing cynical or sour in his heart as I knew it. In the 
company of children and young people he was particu- 
larly happy, and showed to extraordinary advantage. 
He never was so gay, so sweet tempered, so pleasing and 
so pleased as then. Among my own children I have 
observed this many and many a time." 

Jerrold left his family none too well off, and on the day 
of his funeral, Dickens, with that large-heartedness which dic- 
tated many similar enterprises, drew up a scheme for help- 
ing them. "I propose," he wrote to Forster, "that there 
shall be a night at a theatre, when the actors shall play 'The 
Rent Day' and 'Black-Eyed Susan' ; another night elsewhere, 
with a lecture from Thackeray ; a day reading by me ; a night 
reading by me ; a lecture by Russell and a subscription per- 
formance of 'The Frozen Deep,' as at Tavistock House. 
... I have got hold of Arthur Smith as the best man of 
business I know, and go to work with him to-morrow morn- 
ing. . . . My confident hope is that we shall get close upon 
two thousand pounds." 

And Forster records that "the friendly enterprise was 
carried to a close with a vigour, promptitude and success 
that corresponded with this opening. In addition to the 
performances named, there were others in the country, also 
organized by Dickens, in which he took active personal part ; 
and the result did not fall short of his expectations." 






CHAPTER XIV 

THE LANDSEERS 

Writing of that summer at Twickenham, Forster says: 
"Edwin Landseer, all the world's favourite, and the excellent 
Stanfield, came a few months later, in the Devonshire Ter- 
race days." Landseer was one of the novelist's best-liked 
friends of his earlier years. For him, we are told, Dickens 
had the highest admiration and personal regard. He drifted 
somewhat from the circle as he grew in popularity ; came to 
care more for the glamour of drawing-rooms and the admira- 
tion of Society than for the old happy intercourse with such 
congenial spirits as Maclise, Stanfield, Dickens, and Forster. 
"Indeed," says one of his biographers, Mr. James A. Man- 
son, "his stiff behaviour and distant air were so painful that 
many of his older comrades preferred to stand aloof rather 
than behold the deterioration of his nature and character. 
This vexed him in turn, for in his innermost heart he felt 
that his friends were justified, and that he was to blame." 
The actual friendship with Dickens was never broken, and 
even so late as 1870 he was a guest at the dinner which the 
novelist gave at Hyde Park Place to celebrate Mr. Percy 
Fitzgerald's wedding. But the old intimacy vanished. 

They became acquainted while Nickelby was running its 
course, and Landseer was quickly established as one of that 
brilliant circle of which Dickens was the bright particular 
star. It should be said that he was already an admirer of 
Dickens's works, and in this connection a capital story was 
told by the late W. P. Frith. While Frith was a student 
at the Royal Academy Schools, Landseer took his turn with 
the other R.A.s as a "Visitor at the Schools." He read the 
whole time, we are told, and one evening his father — very 
old and very deaf — came in with his speaking-trumpet, 
and said; 

107 



108 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"You are not drawing then; why don't you draw?" 

"Don't feel inclined," shouted the son down the 
trumpet. 

"Then you ought to feel inclined. That's a fine 
figure; get out your paper and draw." 

"Haven't got any paper," said the son. 

"What's that book?" said the father. 

"Oliver Twist " said Edwin Landseer, in a voice loud 
enough to reach Trafalgar Square. 

"Is it about art?" 

"No, it's about Oliver Twist." 

"Let me look at it. Ha ! It's some of Dickens's non- 
sense, I see. You'd much better draw than waste your 
time upon such stuff as that." 

In the Devonshire Terrace days, social foregatherings 
were frequent, and Landseer was a shining light at most of 
them. He was ever a popular guest at the children's theatri- 
cals too. 

Landseer was among those whom Dickens specially de- 
sired to be invited to the private reading of The Chimes at 
Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1844, but he was not present. Two 
years later he did his only illustration for Dickens, namely 
a drawing of Boxer for The Cricket on the Hearth. He 
spent some time with Dickens in Paris in 1855, and they had 
some jolly times together, reminiscent of old days. After 
that they seem to have met very rarely, though, as I have 
said, the friendship stood until the end. 

Landseer's two brothers, Tom and Charles, were also 
friends of Dickens's. Charles often joined the circle at 
Devonshire Terrace and elsewhere, but Tom was debarred 
from such delights owing to his deafness. They were both 
members of the Shakespeare Society, but Edwin does not 
seem to have belonged to that body. There is scarcely any 
reference to their association with Dickens, but the follow- 
ing letter of the novelist's to Macready serves to indicate 
the reality of the friendship he felt for Tom: 

"Tom Landseer — that is the deaf one whom every- 
body quite loves for his sweet nature under a most de- 
plorable infirmity — Tom Landseer asked me if I would 



THE LANDSEERS 109 

present to you for him the accompanying engraving 
which he has executed from a picture by his brother 
Edwin ; submitting it to you as a little tribute from an 
unknown but ardent admirer of your genius, which 
speaks to his heart, although it does not find its way 
there through his ears. I readily undertook the task, 
and send it herewith. 

"I urged him to call upon you with me and proffer 
it boldly ; but he is a very modest and delicately-minded 
creature, and was shy of intruding. If you thank him 
through me, perhaps you will say something about my 
bringing him to call, and so gladden the gentle artist 
and make him happy." 



CHAPTER XV 



NOBLE OLD STANNY 



The other friend specially mentioned by Forster in con- 
nection with the Devonshire Terrace days was Clarkson 
Stanfield — "Noble old Stanny," the best-loved friend that 
Dickens ever had. It seems a bold thing to say that there 
was one who came before Forster in Dickens's regard, but 
there is plenty of evidence to support it. Forster was the 
"guide, philosopher and friend," the entirely trustworthy 
adviser and confidant, the friend upon whom Dickens could 
lean, the solid common-sense guide; Stanfield was the lov- 
able man, "the very spirit of kindly feeling," as Macready 
called him, the man for whom the novelist, "always had a 
most tender love," the man who was ever ready at almost 
any sacrifice to serve his fellows, contriving to do it so that 
they were almost unconscious of the service. 

Stanfield was introduced into the Dickens Circle by Jer- 
rold, and quickly was an established favourite there. In 
1839 we find him at the Nickleby dinner; in 1842 he was at 
the Greenwich dinner, and he was, as we have seen, one of 
the party that made that memorable trip into Cornwall. He 
was the oldest member of the party (Dickens was nineteen 
years his junior), but he was as young as any of them in 
spirit and in capacity for enjoyment. ". . . Stanfield got 
into such apoplectic entanglements," Dickens wrote to Prof. 
Felton, "that we were often obliged to beat him on the back 
with portmanteaus before we could recover him. Seriously, 
I do not believe there never was such a trip." And in 
another part of the same letter he wrote: "Stanfield (an 
old sailor) consulted an enormous map on all disputed 
points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a pocket- 
compass and other scientific instruments." Among the sou- 
venirs of the trip was a sketch by Stanfield of the Logan 
Stone, which, says Forster, "laughingly sketched both the 

110 




Clark son Stanfield, It. A. 



"NOBLE OLD STANNY" 111 

charm of what was seen and the mirth of what was done, 
for it perched me on the top of the stone. It is historical, 
however, the ascent having been made." 

"In a letter to Stanfield written from Albaro a year or 
two later, Dickens made a humorous allusion to this trip : 

"I love you so truly, and have such pride and joy of 
heart in your friendship, that I don't know how to 
begin writing to you. When I think how you are walk- 
ing up and down London in that portly surtout, and 
can't receive proposals from Dick x to go to the theatre, 
I fall into a state between laughing and crying, and 
want some friendly back to smite. * Je-im !' 'Aye, aye, 
your honour,' is in my ears every time I walk upon the 
sea-shore here; and the number of expeditions I make 
into Cornwall in my sleep, the springs of Flys I break, 
and the bowls of punch I drink, would soften a heart 
of stone." 

From this time no enjoyment seems to have been complete 
to Dickens unless it was shared by this friend. They were 
always exchanging visits, and Stanfield was one of the mov- 
ing spirits at all parties at the novelist's house. 

In the early days he often shared with Maclise and 
Forster in those jaunts to Hampstead which have made Jack 
Straw's Castle famous. Here is a letter to Forster: "Stan- 
field and Mac have come in, and we are going to Hampstead 
to dinner. I leave Betsy Prig, as you know, so don't you 
make a scruple about leaving Mrs. Harris. We shall stroll 
leisurely up, to give you time to join us, and dinner will be 
on the table at Jack Straw's at four." Humorous invita- 
tions of this kind were always passing between the friends. 

In 1844 the artist was at the Chuzzlewit dinner. To this 
dinner he brought the eccentric Turner, who, Forster 
records, "had enveloped his throat, that sultry summer day, 
in a huge red belcher-handkerchief which nothing would 
induce him to remove." During that Italian stay Dickens 
wrote to Stanfield a long letter inviting Mm to pay him 

1 Apparently a nickname of Stanfield's for Dickens. Some of the latter's 
letters to the painter are thus signed, and the name occurs in no other con- 
nection. 



112 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

a visit: "I wish you would come this way and see me at 
that Palazzo Peschiere! Was ever man so welcome as I 
would make you ! What a truly gentlemanly action it would 
be to bring Mrs. Stanfield and the baby. And how Kate 
and her sister would wave pocket-handkerchiefs from the 
wharf in joyful welcome! Ah, what a glorious proceeding!" 
Stanfield contributed illustrations to four of the Christ- 
mas books — two to The Chimes, one to The Cricket on the 
Hearth, three to The Battle of Life, and three to The 
Haunted Man. For his Chimes illustrations he refused to 
accept any payment, and so Dickens gave him a silver 
claret jug which was inscribed, "In memory of The Chimes." 
With it he sent the following letter: 

"My dear Stanny, 

"I send you a claret jug. ... I need not say 
how much I should value another little sketch from 
your extraordinary hand in this year's small volume 
to which Mac. again does the frontispiece. But I 
cannot hear of it and will not have it (though the 
gratification of such aid to me is really beyond expres- 
sion) unless you will so far consent to make it a matter 
of business as to receive without asking any questions 
a cheque in return from the publishers. Don't mis- 
understand me — though I am not afraid there is much 
danger of your doing so, for between us misunderstand- 
ing is, I hope, not easy. I know perfectly well that no 
terms would induce you to go out of your way in 
such regard for perhaps anybody else. I cannot, nor 
do I desire to, vanquish the friendly obligation which 
help from you imposes on me. But I am not the sole 
proprietor of these little books; and it would be mon- 
strous in you if you were to dream of putting a scratch 
into a second one without some shadowy reference to 
the other partners ; ten thousand times more monstrous 
in me if any consideration on earth could induce me 
to permit it, which nothing will or shall. So see what 
it comes to. If you will do me the favour on my terms, 
it will be more acceptable to me, my dear Stanfield, 
than I could possibly tell you. If you will not be so 
generous, you deprive me of the satisfaction of receiv- 



"NOBLE OLD STANNY" 113 

ing it at your hands, and shut me out from that pos- 
sibility altogether. What a stony-hearted ruffian you 
must be in such a case !" 

Despite this, Stanfield seems to have got his way. He did 
the illustrations, but refused to accept payment, and this 
time Dickens gave him a silver salver, inscribed, "Clarkson 
Stanfield from Charles Dickens." And in the following 
year he did "three morsels of English landscape which had 
a singular charm for Dickens at the time, and seem to me 
still of their kind quite faultless." * The novelist wrote to 
Forster: "It is a delight to look at these little landscapes 
of the dear old boy. How gentle and elegant, and yet 
how manly and vigorous they are! I have a perfect joy 
in them." It ought also to be noted that Stanfield did a 
water-colour drawing of "The Britannia," in which Dickens 
crossed the Atlantic in 1842, with a view to its being used 
as a frontispiece to the first cheap edition of American 
Notes. This was purchased in 1870 by the Earl of Darnley 
for £110 55. 

In 1857 Dickens paid the "dear old boy" a tribute which 
was very truly appreciated by dedicating Little Dorrit 
to him. 

Stanfield was one of the promoters of the Guild of Litera- 
ture and Art, and worked as untiringly as Dickens for its 
success. As all the world knows, he rendered tremendous 
help in connection with the famous amateur theatricals, 
painting scenery for some of the plays, that ranks among 
his best work. He did not act, though when it was decided 
in 1845 to play "Every Man in His Humour," he was cast 
for the part of Downright, and even rehearsed twice. Then, 
however, he did what Maclise had done previously, "took 
fright and ran away," and Dudley Costello took his place. 

In 1851 came the Guild performances. For "Not so Bad 
as we Seem," Stanfield painted one of the scenes — an open 
space near the river. Four years later came the perform- 
ances of Wilkie Collins's "The Lighthouse" in "the smallest 
theatre in the world" at Tavistock House. It was for this 
play that Stanfield painted his famous drop-scene of the 

1 Forster's Life of Dickens. 



114 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Lighthouse, which, at the Gadshill sale after Dickens's death, 
fetched one thousand guineas. Forster gives the following 
version of how this scene came to be painted. With Mark 
Lemon, Dickens walked across Hampstead to visit the artist. 
"He has been very ill," Forster quotes the novelist as writ- 
ing, "and he told us that large pictures are too much for 
him, and he must confine himself to small ones. But I would 
not have this, I declared he must paint bigger ones than 
ever, and what would he think of beginning upon an act- 
drop for a proposed vast theatre at Tavistock House? He 
laughed and caught at this, we cheered him up very much, 
and he said he was quite a man again." 

This scarcely tallies with Dickens's own published letters. 
This walk across Hampstead is recorded as having taken 
place in April, but on May 20 we find Dickens writing to 
Stanfield as follows: 

"I have a little lark in contemplation, if you will 
help it to fly. 

"Collins has done a melodrama (a regular old-style 
melodrama), in which there is a very good notion. I 
am going to act it, as an experiment, in the children's 
theatre here — I, Mark, Collins, Egg, and my daughter 
Mary, the whole dram. pers. ; our families and yours 
the whole audience ; for I want to make the stage large 
and shouldn't have room for above five-and-twenty 
spectators. Now, there is only one scene in the piece, 
and that, my tarry lad, is the inside of a lighthouse. 
Will you come and paint it for us, one night, and 
we'll all turn to and help? It is a mere wall, of 
course, but Mark and I have sworn that you must do it. 
. . . Write me a line in reply. We mean to burst on 
an astonished world with the melodrama, without any 
note of preparation." 

And two days later he wrote as follows (the italics are 
my own) : 

"Your note came while I was out walking. Even if 
I had been at home I could not have managed to dine 
together to-day, being under a beastly engagement to 






3wg 



SB 



SMRB< v i 



WMi flf I lip**' 



Ptii SL 
T« IBBi 



■H &J?* : i" ft -off/-^i^^/S 





Performance of "Not So Bad as We Seem," Before Queen Victoria and 
Prince Albert, at Devonshire House, ox May Hi. 1851 

From a Contemporary Print 




"The Lighthouse" 

Painted by Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., for the Private Theatricals 



"NOBLE OLD STANNY" 115 

dine out. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I 
shall expect you here some time to-morrow, and will 
remain at home. I only wait your instructions to get 
the little canvases made. 0, what a pity it is not tJie 
outside of the light'us, with the sea a~rowling agin it! 
Never mind, we'll get an effect out of the inside, and 
there's a storm and ship wreck 'off' ; and the great 
ambition of my life will be achieved at last, in the wear- 
ing of a pair of very coarse petticoat trousers. So 
hoorar for the salt sea, mate, and bouse up ! Ever 
affectionately, 

"Dicky." 

This expression of regret that the scene is not to be "the 
outside of the light'us, with the sea a-rowling agin it," is 
irreconcilable with Forster's statement that Stanfield had 
actually been asked to paint such a scene a month before. 
However, the fact is that that scene was painted, as well 
as one of the interior. It took the artist just two morn- 
ings to execute, and it is one of his best achievements! 

In 1856 "The Frozen Deep" was performed at Tavistock 
House, and again the ever-willing Stanfield was pressed into 
the service. "The priceless help of Stanfield had again been 
secured," says Forster, "and I remember finding him one 
day at Tavistock House in the act of upsetting some 
elaborate arrangements by Dickens, with a proscenium 
before him made up of chairs, and the scenery planned out 
with walking-sticks." The play-bill records, "The scenery 
and scenic effects of the second and third acts, by Mr. Stan- 
field, R.A., assisted by Mr. Danson. The act-drop, also by 
Mr. Stanfield, R.A." Afterwards, Dickens had the Light- 
house drop-scene framed, and "The Frozen Deep" drop- 
scene divided into two subjects — a British man-of-war, and 
an Arctic sea — and, says Forster, "the school-room that 
had been the theatre was now hung with sea-pieces by a 
great painter of the sea. To believe them to have been but 
the amusement of a few mornings was difficult indeed. Seen 
from the due distance there was nothing wanting to the 
most masterly and elaborate art." 

Towards the end of his life, Stanfield had much anxiety 
and illness, and Dickens and Forster gave him ample evi- 



116 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

dence of the sincerity of their friendship. He lived at Hamp- 
stead, and it was the delight of his two friends to tramp 
across the Heath and pay him surprise visits to cheer him 
up. Writing to Macready in 1863, Dickens says: "Stan- 
field was very ill for some months, then suddenly picked up, 
and is really rosy and jovial again. Going to see him when 
he was very despondent, I told him the story of Fletcher's 
piece" (then in rehearsal) "with appropriate action; fight- 
ing a duel with the washing-stand, defying the bedstead, and 
saving the life of the sofa-cushions. This so kindled his old 
theatrical ardour, that I think he turned the corner on the 
spot." 

The painter died in May 1867. Just a month before he 
had received his last letter from Dickens — a letter breath- 
ing affection in every line. On his death-bed this good man 
had performed an act which was in keeping with his whole 
life. Dickens and Mark Lemon had quarrelled some years 
previously, and had not spoken since. With life nearing its 
close, the true-hearted Stanfield pleaded with Dickens to 
resume his friendship with "Uncle Mark." Dickens was the 
last man with whom such an appeal could be in vain, and 
the two men once more clasped hands over "noble old 
Stanny's" open grave. 

When at last the end came, Dickens, in All the Year 
Round, paid his final tribute: 

". . . The writer of these words had been his friend 
for thirty years ; and when, a short week or two before 
his death, he laid that once so skiliful hand upon the 
writer's breast, and told him they would meet again, 
'but not here,' the thoughts of the latter turned, for the 
time, so little to his noble genius, and so much to his 
noble nature! 

"He was the soul of frankness, generosity, and sim- 
plicity. The most genial, the most affectionate, the 
most loving, and the most lovable of men. . . . 

"No Artist can ever have stood by his art with a 
quieter dignity than he always did. Nothing would 
have induced him to lay it at the feet of any human 
creature. To fawn, or to toady, or to do undeserved 
homage to any one, was an absolute impossibility with 



"NOBLE OLD STANNY" 117 

him. And yet his character was so nicely balanced 
that he was the last man in the world to be suspected of 
self-assertion, and his modesty was one of his most 
special qualities. 

"He was a charitable, religious, gentle, truly good 
man. A genuine man, incapable of pretence or of con- 
cealment. . . . There is no smile that the writer can 
recall, like his; no manner so naturally confiding and 
so cheerfully engaging. When the writer saw him for 
the last time on earth, the smile and the manner shone 
out once through the weakness, still: the bright un- 
changing Soul within the altered face and form. 

"Gone ! And many and many a dear old day gone 
with him ! But their memories remain and his memory 
will not soon fade out, for he set his mark upon the 
restless waters, and his fame will long be sounded in 
the roar of the sea." 



CHAPTER XVI 

FBANCIS JEFFBEY 

The friendship with Lord Jeffrey was formed in the early 
Devonshire Terrace days. It was one of the most striking 
friendships of the novelist's life. They could not meet often, 
of course, and when they did meet, Jeffrey could take no 
part in the almost daily ridings or in the frequent social 
entertainments, for he was an old man. But between the 
two men there sprang up a truly extraordinary affection. 
"I believe I have lost as affectionate a friend as I ever had, 
or shall have, in this world," wrote Dickens when Jeffrey 
died in 1850. It was true. They met in 1841 and cemented 
a friendship which had already commenced "autograph- 
ically," and which must have meant very much to Dickens. 
Jeffrey was born in 1773, so that he was sixty-eight years 
old when he first met Dickens, who had not yet completed 
his thirtieth year, and his attitude towards the young novel- 
ist was almost that of a fond parent towards a brilliant son. 
His kindly criticism and his whole-hearted encouragement 
must have been invaluable to the young writer. Indeed, they 
must have meant more to him than he ever knew, or the world 
can ever estimate. 

It is true that in respect of one of Jeffrey's criticisms (of 
some parts of Dombey and Son) we find Dickens writing to 
Forster: "I do not at heart, however, lay much real stress 
on his opinion, though one is naturally proud of awakening 
such sincere interest in the breast of an old man who has so 
long worn the blue and yellow"; none the less he could not 
ignore the opinions of such a man, and even though uncon- 
sciously, they cannot have failed to influence his work. 
Indeed, as we shall see later, Jeffrey did influence the plot 
of this very book in a very important particular. 

But, in those early days, when Boz had just burst from 
obscurity into world-wide fame: just realising his strength 

118 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 119 

as he was, the friendship and advice of this famous editor 
and critic could not but help to mould him, and to direct his 
genius in ways where it could wield its most potent influence. 
Jeffrey loved Dickens with a love that is rare among men. 
The old man's heart warmed to the creator of Little Nell 
and Smike as it had warmed to few men in his long life, and 
throughout his letters to Dickens there is a note of affec- 
tionate interest that is most touching. Their first meeting 
was in April 1841, and in the following month, Jeffrey wrote 
to Lord Cockburn from London: 

"I have seen a good deal of and above all, of 

Charles Dickens, with whom I have struck up what I 
mean to be an eternal and intimate friendship. He 
lives very near to us, and I often run over and sit an 
hour tete-a-tete, or take a long walk in the park with 
him — the only way really to know or be known by either 
man or woman. Taken in this way I think him very 
amiable and agreeable. In mixed company, where he 
is now much sought after, he is rather reserved. He 
has dined here, and we with him, at rather too sump- 
tuous a dinner for a man with a family, and only 
beginning to be rich, though selling 44,000 copies of his 
weekly issues." 1 

What strikes one as somewhat astonishing, is the fact that 
though the Clock dinner took place on April 10th, while 
Jeffrej' was in London, he was not of the company, for 
though this was his first meeting with Dickens, they had 
corresponded previously. A month before, Dickens had 
written to Forster about Jeffrey in quite familiar terms, re- 
ferring to a letter that had obviously come from that great 
man himself: "I had a letter from Edinburgh this morning, 
announcing that Jeffrey's visit will be the week after next; 
telling me that he drives about Edinburgh, declaring there 
has been 'nothing so good as Nell since Cordelia,' which he 
writes also to all manner of people; and informing me of a 
desire in that romantic town to give me greeting and wel- 
come." We have also the well-known fact that Jeffrey 
pleaded earnestly with Dickens to allow Little Nell to live. 

1 Master Humphrey's Clock. 



120 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

That must have been before his visit to London in April 
1841, for Nell was dead then. 

We are told that in this visit Jeffrey was welcomed with 
many feasts and entertainments of which he partook very 
sparingly. Before he returned to Edinburgh, he had ex- 
tracted a promise from Dickens to pay a visit to Scotland 
in the ensuing summer. That visit duly took place. The 
novelist and his wife arrived at the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh, 
on June 22nd, and he had, as Forster puts it, his "first 
practical experience of the honours his fame had won for 
him." During his stay in Scotland, he naturally saw much 
of his friend, and visited him several times at Craig-crook. 

Records of meetings between the two men after this are 
lamentably scarce, but we do know, that henceforth Jeffrey 
visited Dickens in London about every spring, and that as 
the years passed the friendship deepened. Dickens paid 
another visit to Scotland in December 1847, for the purpose 
of opening the Glasgow Athenseum, and, of course, took in 
Edinburgh going and returning in order to spend some time 
with Jeffrey. During this visit an incident occurred which 
may be mentioned in this place. On the first day of the 
new year — 1848 — the novelist wrote to Forster: "Jeffrey, 
who is obliged to hold a kind of morning court in his own 
study during the holidays, came up here yesterday in great 
consternation, to tell me that a person had been to make 
and sign a declaration of bankruptcy, and that on looking 
at the signature he saw it was Sheridan James Knowles." 
With that promptness that characterised him in everything 
he ever did, he decided to do something to assist this famous 
playwright. The help of friends was enlisted, and as a result, 
in the following May, performances of "The Merry Wives 
of Windsor" and "Love, Law and Physick" were given in 
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and 
Edinburgh with a view of endowing a curatorship of Shake- 
speare's house at Stratford-on-Avon, to be held by Knowles. 
The endowment was abandoned upon the town of Stratford 
taking charge of the house, but the proceeds of the perform- 
ances, which amounted to £2551, went to the object really 
desired. 

Dickens paid Jeffrey the two greatest compliments that 
were in his power to pay. He dedicated one of his books to 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 121 

him, and he invited him to act as a godfather to one of his 
children. The book was The Cricket on the Hearth, the 
dedication reading: "To Lord Jeffrey, with the affection and 
attachment of his friend, Charles Dickens." The child to 
whom Jeffrey became godfather was the third son, named, of 
course, Francis Jeffrey, who was born on January 15, 18^4, 
and became known in the family circle as "Chickenstalker." 
This was the old man's reply to his friend's invitation to him 
to act as the boy's godfather : 

"... about that most flattering wish, or, more prob- 
ably, passing fancy, of that dear Kate of yours, to 
associate my name with yours over the baptismal font 
of your new-come boy. My first impression was that 
it was a mere piece of kind badinage of hers (or perhaps 
your own) and not meant to be seriously taken, and con- 
sequently that it would be foolish to take any notice 
of it. But it has since occurred to me, that if you had 
really dedicated so great an honour for me, you would 
naturally think it strange that I did not in some way 
acknowledge it, and express the deep sense I should 
certainly have of such an act of kindness. And so I 
write now to say, in all fulness and simplicity of heart, 
that, if such a thing is indeed in your contemplation, 
it would be more flattering and agreeable to me than 
most things that have befallen me in this mortal pil- 
grimage; while if it was but the sportful expression 
of a happy and confiding playfulness I shall still feel 
grateful for the communication, and return you a smile 
as cordial as your own, and with full permission to both 
of you to smile at the simplicity which could not dis- 
tinguish jest from earnest." 

What Jeffrey thought of Dickens's genius and of the prod- 
ucts of that genius, is well known. Not the wildest enthusiast 
that ever lived was more extravagant in his appreciation of 
the novel? than was this great critic. But for the fact that 
most of his letters to Dickens are preserved, it would be almost 
incredible that the man who was so feared as a critic should 
have held Boz in such high estimation, and should have en- 
thused so extravagantly over his writings. The truth is 



122 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

that he saw in those writings a new humanising force. It 
was not Dickens the great humourist over whom he was so 
enthusiastic; but Dickens the tender-hearted, Dickens the 
lover of little children, Dickens the champion of the down- 
trodden and suffering. It was Smike who first touched his 
heart, and it was Nell who completed the conquest. How 
he wept over Nell, and how he pleaded that she might live, 
all the world knows, but I shall be forgiven for introducing 
one authenticated anecdote. 

Mrs. Henry Siddons, a neighbour and intimate of Jef- 
frey's, opened his library door one day, and saw the old man 
sitting in his chair, with his head on the table, and appar- 
ently in deep grief. She was in the act of retiring silently, 
when he looked up, and beckoned her to remain. She saw 
that his eyes were suffused with tears. "Don't go, my dear 
friend," he said, "I shall be all right again in another 
minute." "I had no idea that you had had any bad news or 
cause for grief," said the lady, "or I would not have come. 
Is any one dead?" "Yes, indeed," was the reply. "I'm a 
great goose to have given way so ; but I could not help it. 
You'll be sorry to hear that little Nelly, Boz's little Nelly, 
is dead." 

His love for this character never faded, and his references 
to her in his letters are frequent. To Mrs. Rutherford, for 
instance, in 1842, he wrote: " . . .1 am verging with un- 
reasonable celerity to decay, and I am already in a condition 
which will require all the indulgence I now beseech of you. 
So you must be a good girl and play the Nelly to me now 
and then, keeping me out of scrapes, and cheering my failing 
spirit with the spectacle of your brightness and sustaining 
it by the strength of your affection." 

It would be possible to fill many pages with extracts from 
Jeffrey's letters to Dickens proving how truly he appreciated 
his friend's writings, but I will confine myself to just one or 
two. In regard to American Notes he wrote: 

"Your account of the silent or solitary imprisonment 
system is as pathetic and powerful a piece of writing 
as I have ever seen; and your sweet airy little snatch, 
of the happy little woman taking her new babe home 
to her young husband, and your manly and feeling 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 123 

appeal on behalf of the poor Irish (or rather of the 
affectionate poor of all races and tongues), who are 
patient and tender to their children under circumstances 
which would make half the exemplary parents among 
the rich, monsters of selfishment and discontent, remind 
us that we have still among us the creator of Nelly, and 
Smike, and the schoolmaster, and his dying pupil, etc., 
and must continue to win for you still more of that 
homage of the heart, that love and esteem of the just 
and good, which, though it should never be disjoined 
from them, I think you must already feel to be better 
than fortune or fame." 

Then there is the famous letter about the Carol. No one 
will wish to quarrel with me for quoting that: 

"Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens ! and 
may it always be as light and full as it is kind and a 
fountain of kindness to all within reach of its beatings ! 
We are all charmed with your Carol, chiefly, I think, 
for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, 
and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has 
been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like 
the dream of a beneficent angel, in spite of its broad 
reality, and little Tiny Tim, in life and death, almost 
as sweet and as touching as Nelly. And then the school- 
day scene, with that large-hearted delicate sister, and 
her true inheritor, with his gall-lacking liver, and milk 
of human kindness for blood, and yet all so natural, and 
so humbly and serenely happy ! Well, you should be 
happy yourself, for you may be sure you have done 
more good, and not only fostered more kindly feelings, 
but prompted more positive acts of beneficence by this 
little publication than can be traced to all the pulpits 
and confessionals in Christendom, since Christmas 
1842." 

This is what he wrote on the receipt of a copy of The 
Chimes : 

"Blessings on your kind heart, my dearest Dickens, 
for that, after all, is your great talisman, and the gift 



124 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

for which you will be not only most loved, but longest 
remembered, your kind and courageous advocacy of the 
rights of the poor — your generous assertion and touch- 
ing displays of their virtues, and the delicacy as well 
as the warmth of their affections, have done more to 
soothe desponding worth — to waken sleeping (almost 
dead) humanities — and to shame even selfish brutality, 
than all the other writings of the age, and make it, 
and all that are to come after, your debtors. 

"Well, you will understand from this (though it was 
all true before) that the music of your Chimes has 
reached me, and resounded through my heart, and that 
I thank you with all that is left of it. . . . 

"The aldermen and justices, friends and fathers, etc., 
and, in short, all the tribe of selfishness and cowardice 
and cant, will hate you in their hearts, and cavil when 
they can; will accuse you of wicked exaggeration and 
excitement to discontent, and what they pleasantly call 
disaffection! But never mind — the good and the brave 
are with you, and the truth also, and in that sign you 
will continue." 

And then, with reference to the fifth number of Dombey — 
the number containing the death of little Paul: 

"Oh, my dear, dear Dickens ! What a No. 5 you 
have now given us ! I have so cried and sobbed over it 
last night, and again this morning; and felt my heart 
purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for 
making me shed them; and I never can bless and love 
you enough. Since that divine Nelly was found dead 
on her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there 
has been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet 
Paul, in the summer sunshine of that lofty room. And 
the long vista that leads us so gently and sadly, and 
yet so gracefully and winningly, to that plain consum- 
mation! Every trait so true and so touching, and yet 
lightened by that fearless innocence which goes playfully 
to the brink of the grave, and that pure affection which 
bears the unstained spirit, on its soft and lambent flash, 
at once to its source in eternity. In reading of these 




Sir Davtd Wilkie, R.A. 




Francis Jeffrey 




Professor John Wilson- 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 125 

delightful children, how deeply do we feel that 'of such 
is the kingdom of heaven' ; and how ashamed of the con- 
taminations which our manhood has received from the 
contact of earth, and wonder how you should have been 
admitted into that pure communion, and so 'presumed, 
an earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,' though for 
our benefit and instruction." 

As I have said, he did not value Dickens's humour and 
tragic power so much. As witness his comment on some of 
the more powerful passages in Dombey: "I am proud that 
you should thus show us new views of your genius — but I 
shall always love its gentler magic the most ; and never leave 
Nelly and Paul and Florence for Edith. ... I am prepared, 
too, in some degree, for being softened towards Dombey ; for 
you have made me feel sincere pity for Miss Tox; though, 
to be sure, only by making her the victim of a still more 
hateful and heartless creature than herself." The last letter 
which Dickens ever received from him referred to some of the 
earlier chapters of David Copperfield. He had not taken 
very kindly to the Micawbers: "Uriah is too disgusting; and 
I confess I should have been contented to have heard no more 
of the Micawbers." 

It is interesting to note that Jeffrey influenced the plot of 
Dombey and Son in one very important point. He raised 
the question whether the end might not come by other means 
than Edith's death, and bringing with it a more bitter humil- 
iation for her destroyer. When Edith arranged to flee with 
Carker, Dickens meant her to be what she seemed to be. 
Jeffrey, however, positively refused to believe that she was 
Carker's mistress, and the result was that Dickens decided 
upon an alteration, and gave us that scene of her undeceiving 
the villain and "giving him to know that she never meant 
that." 

I have said that Jeffrey always treated Dickens more as 
a much-loved son than as a friend. He himself described his 
relationship to the novelist as that of an elder brother. Not 
only did he encourage Boz with whole-hearted praise, but he 
sought his confidence in regard to more intimate and personal 
affairs. For instance, in February 1844, we read in one of 
his letters : "I shall not be satisfied if the profits of the Carol 



126 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

do not ultimately come up to my estimate. I want amazingly 
to see you rich, and independent of all irksome exertions. 
. . . And so, God be with you." Then in 1847 we find him 
writing : 

"I certainly did not mean to ask you for the full and 
clear, if not every way satisfactory statement you have 
trusted me with. But I do feel the full value of that 
confidence, and wish I had any better return to make 
to it than mere thanks, and idle, because general, advice. 
I am rather disappointed, I must own, at finding your 
embankment still so small. But it is a great thing to 
have made a beginning, and laid a foundation; and you 
are young enough to reckon on living many years under 
the proud roof of the completed structure, which even 
I expect to see ascending in its splendour. But when 
I consider that the public has, upon a moderate com- 
putation, paid at least £100,000 for your works (and 
had a good bargain too at the money), it is rather pro- 
voking to think that the author should not have — in 

bank, and have never received, I suspect, above . 

There must have been some mismanagement, I think, as 
well as ill-luck, to have occasioned this result — not ex- 
travagance on your part, my dear Dickens — nor even 
excessive beneficence — but hnprovident arrangements 
with publishers — and too careless a control of their pro- 
ceedings. ... I am as far as possible from grudging 
you the elegances and indulgences which are suitable to 
your tasteful and liberal nature, and which you have 
so fully earned ; and should indeed be grieved not to see 
you surrounded, and your children growing up, in the 
midst of the refinements which not only gratify the 
relishes, but improve the capacities, of a cultivated mind. 
All I venture to press on you is the infinite importance 
and unspeakable comfort of an achieved and secure in- 
dependence; taking away all anxiety about decay of 
health or mental alacrity, or even that impatience of 
task work which is apt to steal upon free spirits who 
would work harder and better if redeemed from the yoke 
of necessity. But this is twaddle enough, and must be 
charitably set down to the score of my paternal anxiety 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 127 

and senile caution. . . . And so God bless you and your 
dear Kate, and my charming boy, and all his brothers 
and sisters, and all whom you love, and love you — with 
you, or at a distance. . . . Give my love to Kate, and 
do not let her forget me. Name me, too, sometimes to 
the boy." 

And here, in the same year, is an intimate note which 
Dickens was not the sort of man to tolerate from anybody: 

"Well, but how have you been? And how is the poor 
child who was so cruelly hustled against the portals of 
life at his entry? And his dear mother? And my bright 
boy? And all the rest of the happy circle? . . . And 
how does the People's Edition prosper? And how does 
the embankment proceed? And do you begin to feel 
the germs of a prudent avarice and anticipated pride of 
purse working themselves into your breast? And whom 
do you mostly live with, or wish to live with? And 
among whom, and in what condition, do you most aspire 
to die? Though I am not exactly your father confessor, 
just know I always put you through your Catechism, 
and I do expect and require an answer to all these 
interrogatives. ... So God bless you ! my dear Dickens ; 
and with truest love to my true-hearted Kate, and all 
true Dickenses, believe me, always, ever and ever yours." 

Dickens, in 1848, evidently became remiss, for here is an 
extract from a letter written by Jeffrey in November: 

"My dear Dickens, 

"We must not grow quite out of acquaintance, 
if you please! You have put my name alongside of 
your own, on a memorable little page, and have solemnly 
united them again on the head of a child, who will live, 
I hope, neither to discredit the one, nor to be ashamed 
of the other. And so, for the sake even of decent con- 
sistency, you must really take a little notice of me now 
and then, and let me have some account, as of old, of 
your health and happiness — of your worldly affairs, and 
your spiritual hopes and experiences — of your literary 






128 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

projects and domestic felicities — your nocturnal walks 
and dramatic recreations — of the sale of cheap copies, 
and the conception of bright originals — of your wife and 
children; in short, your autumn migrations and winter 
home — of our last parting, which was more hurried than 
usual, and our next meeting, which, alas, I feel to be 
more and more uncertain." 

Assuredly it was something to have inspired such feelings 
of friendship in such a man! 

Jeffrey died in January 1850. Less than a year before 
he had written to his much-loved friend : 

"My ever dear Dickens, 

"I have been very near dead; and am by no 
means sure that I shall ever recover from the malady 
which has confined me mostly to bed for the last five 
weeks, and which has only, within the last three days, 
allowed me to leave my room for a few hours in the 
morning. But I must tell you that, living or dying, I 
retain for you, unabated and unimpaired, the same cor- 
dial feelings of love, gratitude and admiration, which 
have been part of my nature, and no small part of my 
pride and happiness, for the last twenty years. 1 . . . 
I am better, however, within these last days ; and hope 
still to see your bright eye, and clasp your open hand, 
once more at least before the hour of final separation. 
In the meantime, you will be glad, though I hope not 
surprised, to hear that I have no acute suffering, no 
disturbing apprehensions or low spirits; but possess 
myself in a fitting, and indeed cheerful tranquillity, with- 
out impatience, or any unseemly anxiety as to the issue 
I am appointed to abide." 

Of this letter, Dickens wrote to Forster: "I had a letter 
from Jeffrey yesterday morning, just as I was going to write 
to him. He has evidently been very ill, and I begin to have 
fears for his recovery. It is a very pathetic letter, as to his 
state of mind; but only in a tranquil contemplation of death, 

1 A great exaggeration, of course. 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 129 

which I think very noble." Less than three weeks before he 
died, the old man wrote his last letter to Dickens, and in that 
he struck an equally noble and beautiful note: 

"We are all tolerably well here, I thank you; Mrs. 
Jeffrey, I am happy to say, has been really quite well 
for many months, and, in fact, by much the most robust 
of the two. My fairy grandchild, too, is bright and 
radiant through all the glooms of winter and age, and 
fills the house with sunshine and music. I am old and 
vulnerable, but still able for my work, and not a bit 
morose or querulous ; 'And by the mass the heart is in 
the trim.' I love all that is lovable, and can respond 
to love as intensely as in youth, and hope to die before 
that capacity forsakes me." 

The death of this earnest admirer and true friend was, 
Forster tells us, a great sorrow to Dickens. He wrote to 
Forster : "Poor dear Jeffrey ! I bought a 'Times' at the 
station yesterday morning, and was so stunned by the an- 
nouncement, that I felt it in that wounded part of me, almost 
directly; and the bad symptoms (modified) returned within 
a few hours. ... I sent him proof-sheets of the number 
only last Wednesday. I say nothing of his wonderful abili- 
ties and great career, but he was a most affectionate friend 
to me; and though no man could wish to live and die more 
happily, so old in years and yet so young in faculties and 
sympathies, I am very, very deeply grieved for his loss." 



CHAPTER XVII 

SIR DAVID WILKIE 

Sie David Wilkie, to whose memory Dickens proposed a 
toast at the Edinburgh banquet in 1841, was a very intimate 
friend in 1839 and 1840, and was one of those with whom 
in those years there were "frequent social entertainments." 
But towards the end of the latter year he went abroad in a 
vain quest of health, and died off Gibraltar in June 1841. 
In that month Dickens paid his first visit to Edinburgh and 
was entertained at a great public dinner, "and," says Forster, 
"it was while we were all regretting Wilkie's absence abroad, 
and Dickens with warrantable pride was saying how surely 
the great painter would have gone to this dinner, that the 
shock of his sudden death came, and there was left but the 
sorrowful satisfaction of honouring his memory." Dickens, 
we are told, refused to believe the sad news at first, and 
wrote to Forster: "My heart assures me Wilkie liveth. He 
is the sort of man who will be very old when he dies." But 
the news was true, and at the dinner on June 15, Dickens 
had to propose the memory of his friend : 

"One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as 
it were, yesterday ; one who was devoted to his art, and 
his art was nature — I mean David Wilkie. He was one 
who made the cottage hearth a graceful thing — of whom 
it might truly be said that he found 'books in the run- 
ning brooks,' and who has left in all he did some breath- 
ing of the air which stirs the heather. But however 
desirous to enlarge on his genius as an artist, I would 
rather speak of him now as a friend who has gone from 
amongst us. There is his deserted studio — the empty 
easel lying idly by — the unfinished picture with its face 
turned to the wall, and there is that bereaved sister, 

130 



SIR DAVID WILKIE 131 

who loved him with an affection death cannot quench. 
He has left a name in fame clear as the bright sky ; he 
has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves 
which roll over him. Let us hope that she who more 
than all others mourns his loss, may learn to reflect that 
he died in the fulness of his fame, before age or sickness 
had dimmed his powers — that she may yet associate with 
feelings as calm and pleasant as we do now the memory 
of Wilkie." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SOME SCOTCH FRIENDS 

During that memorable visit to Scotland in 1841 Dickens 
met most of the famous men in Edinburgh, and formed with 
one or two of them pleasant acquaintanceships which lasted 
for some years. First of all there was John Wilson, "Chris- 
topher North," who presided at the great dinner in Jeffrey's 
absence through ill health. They were introduced by Jef- 
frey, and thus Dickens describes him in a letter to Forster. 
"A bright, clear-complexioned, mountain-looking fellow, he 
looks as though he had just come down from the Highlands 
and had never in his life taken pen in hand. . . . He is a 
great fellow to look at and talk to; and if you could divert 
your mind of the actual Scott, is just the figure you would 
put in his place." Wilson was in poor health at this time, 
and the speech at the dinner was a great effort to him, but 
it was an admirable speech, and it was hearty in its apprecia- 
tion of Dickens's work. 1 

I cannot find that Dickens and Wilson ever met after 1841, 
but during the visit they saw much of each other, and the 
novelist clearly took a very strong liking to the professor. 
This meeting of the two men aroused great interest in Scot- 
land, and a Scotch artist, A. Lesage, celebrated it in cari- 
cature, in which he showed Dickens being introduced to Wil- 
son by Jeffrey. Wilson is leaning upon the shoulder of Peter 
Robertson, with whom Dickens also spent several pleasant 
hours during his visit. He was "a large, portly, full-faced 
man, with a merry eye, and a queer way of looking under 
his spectacles which is characteristic and pleasant." Dickens 
added: "He seems a very warm-hearted earnest man, too, 
and I felt quite at home with him forthwith." Three years 
later Peter Robertson, now become Lord Robertson, visited 

1 It was reprinted in full in The Dickensian, October, 1918. 
132 



SOME SCOTCH FRIENDS 133 

the novelist at Albaro, and was heartily welcome. Still later 
we find him a frequent guest at Devonshire House, where he 
was in great request for his Scotch mimicries. 

Others whom he came to know during this Scotch visit 
were Sir William Allan, who "squired him about" all one 
morning, Adam Black, the publisher, Sir Archibald Alison 
(with whom he became very friendly during his second 
visit to Edinburgh in 1847), Lord Murray, Lord Gillies, 
Joseph Gordon, Macvey Napier and J. C. Colquhoun. After 
the banquetings Dickens journeyed through the Highlands, 
accompanied by Angus Fletcher as guide. He was an eccen- 
tric who never settled down to any occupation and preferred 
a wandering life to that of home. "His unfitness for an 
ordinary career," says Forster, "was perhaps the secret of 
such liking for him as Dickens had. Fletcher's eccentricities 
and absurdities, divided often by the thinnest partition from 
a foolish extravagance, but occasionally clever, and always 
the genuine though whimsical outgrowth of the life he led, 
had a curious charm for Dickens. He enjoyed the oddity 
and humour; tolerated all the rest; and to none more freely 
than to Kindheart during the next few years, both in Italy 
and in England, opened his house and hospitality." 
Fletcher's eccentricities during this Highlands tour were a 
great source of merriment to Dickens. 

At Albaro in 1844 Fletcher — Mr. Kindheart, as Dickens 
called him — made a long stay with the novelist, and numerous 
are the references to his eccentricities ; numerous, too, are the 
references to his simple kindliness. He loved Dickens greatly, 
and in his zeal once instigated the people of Carrara to 
organize a demonstrative welcome for his friend. He him- 
self was staying there, and knowing that Dickens was coming, 
took steps to see that the novelist was given a special wel- 
come. "There is a beautiful little theatre there, built of 
marble; and they had it illuminated that night, in my 
honour. There was really a very fair opera. ... It was 
crammed to excess, and I had a great reception; a deputa- 
tion waiting upon us in the box, and the orchestra turning 
out in a body afterwards and serenading us at N. Walton's." 

Fletcher died in 1862, and Dickens wrote: "Poor Kind- 
heart ! I think of all that made him so pleasant to us, and 
am full of grief." 



CHAPTER XIX 

A DISTINGUISHED GROUP 

There are many other friends yet to be noted before we 
pass on to the Gore House days, and some of these may be 
grouped into one chapter. 

Dr. John Elliotson is, I suppose, best remembered as the 
person to whom Thackeray dedicated "Pendennis," but that 
is by no means his only claim to fame. For instance, he was 
one of the founders of University College Hospital. He lost 
his professorship at London University in 1838 because of his 
conversion to mesmerism, and it was probably his reputation 
in this direction that first attracted Dickens to him. "He 
had," says Forster, "always sympathised almost as strongly 
as Archbishop Whately did with Doctor Elliotson' s mesmeric 
investigations." And for the man personally Dickens had 
a great regard. "What a good fellow Elliotson is," he 
wrote to Macready in 1841, and Forster writes of this friend 
as "the kind physician, Dr. Elliotson, whose name was for 
nearly thirty years a synonym with us . all for unwearied, 
self-sacrificing, beneficent service to every one in need." So 
early as 1840 Elliotson was of the inner circle, and in 1846 
we find him spending a few days with Dickens at Lausanne — 
"an enjoyment without a drawback"; and right through the 
years, though we know very little of their associations, the 
friendship remained as close and earnest as at the beginning. 

Lord Normanby, "whose many acts of sympathy and kind- 
ness had inspired strong regard in Dickens," was an early 
friend and a very valued one indeed. Through very many 
years a steady and very close friendship lasted, and Dickens 
paid his tribute to it by dedicating Dombey and Son to his 
friend's wife. It is particularly to be regretted that no 
record of this friendship exists, for Lord Normanby was 
one of Boz's earliest admirers ; but a couple of references 
in Forster's book is all I have been able to find. His Lord- 

134 



A DISTINGUISHED GROUP 135 

ship was in the chair at the Greenwich dinner in 1844, he 
and Dickens saw a great deal of each other in Paris at dif- 
ferent times, and they were often guests at each other's 
homes. And that is all we know. 

Albany Fonblanque was a friend of these very early days. 
He was much more Forster's friend than Dickens's, with 
whom he was never really intimate, but none the less, he was 
well liked by the novelist, and he is entitled to special mention 
for the reason that he was one of the first to discern the 
genius of Boz. Indeed, it was from him that Forster him- 
self first heard of the existence of this young writer whose 
works bore such promise. The Sketches by Boz, says 
Dickens's biographer, were much more talked about than 
the first two or three numbers of Pickwick, "and I remember 
well with what hearty praise the book was named to me by 
my dear friend, Albany Fonblanque, as keen and clear a 
judge as ever lived, either of books or men." Later it was 
Forster's pleasure to make Fonblanque and Boz acquainted. 
The famous journalist's admiration for the genius of Dickens 
was great. He writes on one occasion : 

"I have been laid up with one of my attacks, which 
I mention only in honour of Dickens, who carries me 
through such sore afflictions. Last year I took to my 
bed in company with Bamaby Budge at Paris. This 
season Martin ChuzzUwit has carried me through my 
intestine troubles. The Togers (sic) made me laugh be- 
tween such fits as Gil Bias should have had to warrant 
his roars in the cavern. An author like Dickens cannot 
know the good he does in his manifold services to hu- 
manity and alleviating ministrations under distress." 

He became a welcome guest at Dickens's house, but I 
think there can be no doubt but that he came into the 
Dickens Circle chiefly by virtue of his great friendship with 
Forster. He was a good-hearted man of brilliant parts, but 
he was not a strong personality, and I can find no evidence 
that he had any great appeal for Dickens. The novelist 
valued him as a critic, of course, and particularly wished him 
to be invited to the reading of The Chimes at Lincoln's Inn 
Fields in 1844. He was not there, but when the reading was 



136 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

repeated a day or two later he attended. Says Forster, 
"Such was the report made by it that once more, on the 
pressing intercession of our friend, Thomas Ingoldsby (Mr. 
Barham), there was a second reading to which the presence 
md encouragement of Fonblanque gave new zest." 

R. H. Barham, of "Ingoldsby" fame, was undoubtedly 
held in considerable regard by Dickens, but he died in 1845, 
and there is very little record of the friendship between the 
brother humourists. It would appear probable that they 
were acquainted in 1838. In December of that year Dickens 
wrote a delightful letter to one Master Hastings Hughes, 
who had written to him stating his wishes as to the various 
rewards and punishments to be meted out to the characters 
in Nickleby. The boy's letter, we are told, was forwarded 
to him through Barham, which makes it pretty certain that 
Ingoldsby and Boz were acquainted. In 1842, as we have 
seen, Barham was at the Greenwich dinner. Certainly from 
that time he was a frequent guest at Dickens's house. 
Further evidence that they were on particularly friendly 
terms is provided by the fact which has just been noted that 
in December 1844 the novelist gave a second private reading 
of The Chimes for Barham's express benefit. 

It surely is surprising that Dickens and Charles Lever 
were not closer friends than they were. There is such a 
buoyant joyousness in the books of both men, reflecting truly 
their natures, that one would have thought they would have 
come together as steel and magnet. One would have thought 
they had almost everything in common. Both were great 
humourists, both had large hearts, and loved their kind, both 
loved good-fellowship and joviality. Yet there was scarcely 
any friendship between them. As a matter of fact, for years 
there was a most regrettable coolness. Lever's biographer, 
Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick, offers an explanation. When "Lorre- 
quer" was published, he says, a reviewer declared that he 
would rather be its author than the author of all the Pick- 
wicks or Nicklebys in the world. This passage was used, 
with others of a similar description, in advertisements, "giv- 
ing much annoyance to Dickens, who at last responded un- 
graciously to a civil letter of Lever's, and it was not for 
years that friendly relations were resumed." Mr. Fitzpat- 
rick adds that with the comparison or advertisements Lever 



A DISTINGUISHED GROUP 137 

had nothing to do. One is glad to have the assurance, for 
such methods surely were in bad taste. 

But the ill-feeling passed away after some years, and in 
the 'sixties Dickens asked Lever to write a story for All the 
Year Round. Lever responded with "A Day's Ride, a Life 
Romance." Says his biographer: "It proved, however, a 
fatiguing failure, and Lever was long sore from the effect 
of it. Dickens complained that it had the effect of depress- 
ing the circulation of All the Year Round; and at last re- 
sorted to the unusual step of advertising the day on which 
the prolonged 'ride' was to end. He admitted that a few 
good glimpses of men and scenes were obtained — among 
others of Algernon Potts, the predestinarian, whose adven- 
tures elicited the remark that 'Lever, letting off a good deal 
of Bohemia, is at his best in the wild vagaries of this reckless 
da3'-dream.' " Mr. Percy Fitzgerald tells the same story. 
"A Day's Ride, a Life Romance," he says, brought the Jour- 
nal into very parlous state, and Dickens had to start Great 
Expectations. 

There is nothing much else to be recorded. Lever's story, 
"St. Patrick's Eve," was founded on his experiences of the 
great sufferings of the Irish peasantry during the cholera 
epidemic, and, says his biographer, "though not avowed, was 
suggested by Dickens's Chimes, which had just scored a 
success." Another interesting fact is that in "Davenport 
Dunn, the Man of one Day," Lever made use of some lead- 
ing incidents in the life of the notorious John Sadler, whom 
Dickens took for the original of Mr. Merdle in Little Dorrit. 

One would naturally expect to find a friendship between 
Sydney Smith and Dickens, and one did exist, though it was 
not of an intimate character. They met early in the novel- 
ist's career. In the published collection of Dickens's Letters, 
we find one to William Longman, in which the novelist 
writes : "I wish you would tell Sydney Smith that of all the 
men I ever heard of and never saw, I have the greatest 
curiosity to see and the greatest interest to know him." That 
letter, which is undated, is placed among the letters of the 
year 1839, but that is clearly a mistake, for in the previous 
year we find Smith writing to Dickens in a vein which proves 
they were already well acquainted. The letter refers to some 
ladies of Smith's acquaintance who wished to meet Dickens 



138 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

at dinner, and it proceeds : "My friends have not the small- 
est objection to being put into a number, but on the contrary 
would be proud of the distinction; Lady Charlotte in par- 
ticular you may marry to Newman Noggs." 

Curiously enough, the great wit did not enjoy Pickwick. 
In 1837 Tom Moore records that he met Smith at a dinner 
in the Row, and that the wit cried Dickens down, "and evi- 
dently without having given him a fair trial." NicJdeby 
conquered him, however, and it was the number in which Mrs. 
Nickleby imparts her confidences to Miss Knagg that clinched 
the victory. He wrote to Sir George Phillips: "Nickleby is 
very good. I stood out against Mr. Dickens as long as I 
could, but he has conquered me." 

From that time Dickens had no greater admirer. 

The following letter, written in 1842, soon after the novel- 
ist's return from America, is proof of Smith's personal re- 
gard for Dickens: "I accept your obliging invitation con- 
ditionally. If I am invited by any man of greater genius 
than yours, or by one in whose works I have been more com- 
pletely interested, I will repudiate you, and dine with the 
more splendid phenomenon of the two." 

In 1840 they were on very friendly terms, and Forster 
records that in that year they met at many social entertain- 
ments. And so it was till the end. They often met socially 
and they had a true regard for each other's character and 
genius. The last time they met was in 1844 at a dinner at 
Osnaburgh Terrace on May 28. 

Smith died in the following year, and two years later 
Dickens paid a very striking tribute to his memory, by nam- 
ing his fifth son after him — Sydney Smith Haldimand 
Dickens. 

Charles Buller was at the "dinner to Black, so that Dickens 
must have known him fairly well, but he was never really 
one of the novelist's circle. If Lytton's description of him 
was correct, he could not have been very acceptable to Boz. 
He was clever, wrote the author of "Pelham," but super- 
ficial — always wanting in earnestness, and ironically pert. 
Southwood Jones, another of the company at that dinner 
to Black, was a much better liked friend, who was often at 
Dickens's house. 

In 1841 Dickens became greatly interested in the improve- 



A DISTINGUISHED GROUP 139 

ments that had taken place in the London prisons during 
recent years, and, says Forster, "he took frequent means of 
stating what in this respect had been done, since even the 
date when his Sketches were written, by two most efficient 
public officers at Clerkenwell and Tothill Fields, Mr. Chester- 
ton and Lieutenant Tracey, whom the course of these in- 
quiries turned into private friends." These two gentlemen 
were officials of the kind that are not so common as they 
ought to be — keen for beneficial reform, refusing to be hide- 
bound by Red Tape; and Dickens had a high admiration 
of the valuable work they did. They became private friends, 
but not intimate friends, and never had an important place 
in the Dickens Circle. 



CHAPTER XX 



WILLIAM JEEDAN 



In this place shall William Jerdan have mention, because, 
like Fonblanque, he early discerned the genius of Boz. Nay, 
it is to his credit that he went out of his way to offer en- 
couragement to the young writer. 

"With Dickens" (he says), "I can claim long friendly 
relations, and with Thackeray hardly less amicable in- 
tercourse. In the first morning beam of public delight 
upon the former I felt the full glow, and looked with 
prophetic gladness to the bright day which I was sure 
must follow so auspicious a dawning. When Sam Weller 
appeared on the canvas, I was so charmed with the 
creation that I could not resist the impulse to write to 
the author and counsel him to develop the novel char- 
acter largely — to the utmost. My urgency was taken 
in good part, and we improved our alliance so genially 
that when Pickwick was triumphantly finished and a 
'semi-business Pickwickian sort of dinner' ensued, I was 
invited to be of the party with the compliments of the 
author: *I depend upon you above everybody. . . .' I 
cannot describe my gratification. The party was de- 
lightful, with Mr. Sergeant Talfourd as V.P., and there 
the pleasant and uncommon fact was stated . . . that 
there never had been a line of written agreement, but 
that the author, printer, artist, and publisher, had all 
proceeded on simple verbal assurances, and that there 
never had arisen a word to interrupt or prevent the 
complete satisfaction of every one." 

We may readily believe that the receipt of such a letter 
from so powerful a person as the Editor of the "Literary 
Gazette" was a very gratifying event to the young novelist. 

140 



WILLIAM JERDAN 141 

H. F. Chorley says that Jerdan was "the puppet of certain 
booksellers, and dispensed praise and blame at their bidding, 
and, it may be feared, 'for a consideration.' " The value of 
Chorley's opinion is discounted by the fact that he was a 
shining light of the "Athenaeum," and, moreover, Jerdan 
meets this very charge in his "Autobiography" and pretty 
conclusively disposes of it. Nevertheless, Jerdan wielded tre- 
mendous power, and praise or blame from him very often 
meant the making or the marring of a young writer. There- 
fore, his letter of praise and encouragement must have meant 
a great deal to the twenty-four-years-old Boz. 

Jerdan was also at the Nickleby dinner: "On a later occa- 
sion of the same kind," he says, "I was flattered by the nomi- 
nation to occupy the post of honour at the bottom of the 
table, and am happy to remember that I acquitted myself 
so creditably of its onerous duties as to receive the appro- 
bation of the giver of the feast, his better half, and the oi 
polloi unanimously." In a footnote to this, he says: "I 
slyly introduced in something I had to say about a portrait 
of her" (Mrs. Dickens's) "husband which I knew she longed 
to possess; and the hint was taken in the right quarter and 
the painting presented to her." The reference obviously is 
to Maclise's famous picture. Here again Jerdan is laying 
flattering unction to his soul. He may have given the "sly 
hint," and he may have assumed, when he knew that the 
painting was in Dickens's possession, that his hint had been 
acted upon, but, of course, the gift was to Dickens himself, 
and it was a spontaneous act of Chapman and Hall's without 
any reference to "sly hints" from Jerdan or anybody else. 

Reference to this painting of Maclise's reminds us of a 
very curious link between Dickens and Jerdan to which refer- 
ence has been made by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald. He points to 
the fact that Mr. Pickwick had his portrait painted, and that 
it was a portrait "which he did not wish to be destroyed 
when he grew a few years older." Mr. Fitzgerald sees in 
this an allusion to an incident that created a sensation in the 
spring of 1836 — just at the time that Pickwick was in the 
first dawn of its popularity. Maclise had painted a portrait 
of Sir John Soane, the famous architect, and the donor to 
the nation of the Soane Museum. Sir John had been a gen- 
erous donor to the Literary Fund, and he offered the portrait 



142 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

for hanging in the Committee room. It was a good portrait, 
and he was very pleased with it, until somebody put it into 
his head that it made him look older than he really was. Then 
he demanded that it should be replaced by a portrait by Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, which he offered to present. 

Maclise demanded his painting back; Sir John insisted 
that it should be handed to him. The Committee were saved 
from their dilemma by some one cutting the portrait to 
shreds. That some one was Jerdan. Macready, in his Diary 
confirms Mr. Fitzgerald's statement, for on May 10, 1836, 
he writes : "Went to rehearsal, calling on Forster by the way, 
who related to me and showed me a statement in the 
'Chronicle' of the occurrence that Jerdan had cut to pieces 
(as he had said at Elstree he would do) Maclise's portrait 
of Sir John Soane, who had been absurdly and tetchily 
desirous of destroying that too faithful record of his per- 
sonal appearance." Mr. Fitzgerald's suggestion that 
Dickens had this incident in mind when he wrote the sentence 
quoted is at least reasonable. 

Jerdan was associated with Dickens in the adjustment of 
the difficulties with Bentley. He says that when Dickens 
decided to repurchase a share of the copyright of Oliver 
Twist, "upon my table the sum of £2250 was handed over 
to Mr. Bentley, and both parties perfectly satisfied." This 
must not be taken too literally, for the agreement, accord- 
ing to Forster, was that the £2250 was deducted from the 
purchase money — £3000 — of Barndby Rudge. But it is 
true that Jerdan had a hand in the negotiations. Forster 
says that it was a note from Jerdan on behalf of Bentley 
that opened those negotiations. 

Dickens and Jerdan continued to be friendly acquaint- 
ances, visiting one another occasionally, meeting sometimes 
in social life, but there never existed, I am very sure, any 
fellowship. Dickens was one of the guests at the dinner 
which was held to celebrate the twenty-fifth birthday of the 
"Literary Gazette," accepting the invitation in the following 
terms : 

"I am going into Yorkshire on Monday morning, but 
having fortunately been able to take a place for Tues- 
day, can accept your kind invitation. 



WILLIAM JERDAN 143 

"Be sure that among all the congratulations which 
will be offered to you in the delightful occasion of our 
meeting there will be none more cordial and warm- 
hearted than mine. By the time we dine together again 
to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of your healthy off- 
spring, I shall study to find appropriate things to clothe 
them in; till then, however, I fear they must remain 
locked up in my heart — where they will at any rate 
keep warmer than on the lips of, my dear Jerdan, yours 
most faithfully, 

"Charles Dickens." 

That was in 1852. Subsequently they do not seem to have 
met so frequently as of yore, and the only further occasion 
on which I can find their names linked is in the following 
year, when Dickens was one of the Committee that organised 
a testimonial to Jerdan on his retirement from the "Literary 
Gazette." It should, however, be recorded that Jerdan occa- 
sionally contributed to Household Words and All the Year 
Round. 



CHAPTER XXI 

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHAET 

With Scott's son-in-law Dickens was acquainted from his 
very earliest days of authorship. Ainsworth has recorded 
that Lockhart thought that Pickwick was "all very well — 
but damned low !" Which is interesting in view of the facts 
that at the time Pickwick was written Lockhart was Editor 
of the "Quarterly Review" — which Dickens parodied as the 
"Quarrelly Review" for the purpose of some dummy book- 
backs in his library — and that the "Quarterly's" was the only 
authoritative voice raised even in mild criticism. For it was 
in October 1837 that the famous article appeared which 
warned Dickens — quite properly, in view of the facts — that 
he was writing too much and too often, and that, having gone 
up like a rocket, if he was not careful, he might come down 
like the stick. 

Lockhart seems to have had many qualities that made it 
difficult to love him, and especially from 1837, in which year 
the first of a series of painful domestic sorrows came upon 
him, he seems to have tried the patience of his friends pretty 
sorely. That caustic wit of his was not exactly an asset to 
him in social relations, and when his trials came upon him 
he developed an irritability and a moroseness that did not 
tend to win for him affection. In her "Life" of her father, 
Professor Wilson ("Christopher North"), Mrs. Gordon says 
of him that he was "cold, haughty, supercilious in manner," 
and that he "seldom won love and not infrequently caused 
his friends to distrust it in him, for they sometimes found 
the warmth of their own feelings thrown back upon them 
in the presence of this cold indifference." 

All this is true, but if he had his faults they were on the 
surface. He was generous and just, and bore no malice. 
Beneath an exterior that was often unpleasing there was a 
tender and affectionate heart, and by those who took the 

144 



JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART 145 

trouble to get beneath the surface and to understand him 
he was held in high esteem. Carlyle, for instance, who was 
not easy to please, spoke of him, we are told, as he seldom 
spoke of any man, and between them there was a trusting 
confidence quite remarkable. Dickens, too, saw and loved 
the real man, and a letter written eight years after Lock- 
hart's death is evidence of the regard he had for him. Mrs. 
Lynn Linton wrote a review of Mrs. Gordon's book for All 
the Year Round, and in it she made some reference to Scott's 
son-in-law and biographer, which Dickens struck out. 

"Will you tell Mrs. Linton" (he wrote to Wills) "that 
in looking over her admirable account (most admirable) 
of Mrs. Gordon's book I have taken out the references 
to Lockhart? Not because I in the least doubt their 
justice, but because I knew him, and because one bright 
day at Rome I walked about with him for some hours 
when he was dying and all the old faults had faded out 
of him, and the mere ghost of the handsome man I had 
first known when Scott's daughter was at the head of 
his house had little more to do with this world than 
she in her grave, or Scott in his, or little Hugh Little- 
john in his. Lockhart had been anxious to see me all 
the previous day (when I was at Campagne), and as we 
walked about I knew very well that he knew very well 
why. He talked of getting better, but I never saw him 
again. This makes me stay Mrs. Lynn Linton's hand, 
gentle as it is." 

Verily Dickens was a friend worthy the name. 

I do not know when Dickens and Lockhart met. Forster 
says that in 1839, after his return from a trip into Wales, 
Dickens "had pleasing communications with Lockhart, din- 
ing with him at Cruikshank's a little later; and this was the 
prelude to a 'Quarterly Review' article on Oliver by Mr. 
Ford, written at the instance of Lockhart, but without the 
raciness he would have put into it, in which amends were 
made for previous less favourable notices in that Review. 
Dickens had not, however, waited for this to express publicly 
his hearty sympathy with Lockhart's handling of some pas- 
sages in his admirable 'Life of Scott' that had drawn down 



146 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

upon him the wrath of the Ballantynes. This he did in the 
'Examiner.' " 1 

It would not be unnatural to infer that this was their 
first acquaintanceship, but the reference by Dickens in his 
letter quoted above to his recollection of Lockhart when 
"Scott's daughter was at the head of his house" proves that 
the inference would be wrong, for Mrs. Lockhart died in 
1837. So that Boz and the Editor of the "Quarrelly Re- 
view" must have known each other when Pickwick was still 
the one topic of conversation. They remained very good 
friends, dining at each other's homes occasionally, and more 
often meeting at what Forster calls "social foregatherings." 

iTwo articles, entitled "Scott and his Publishers," in the "Examiner," 
March 31 and September 29, 1839. Reprinted in Miscellaneous Papers. 



CHAPTER XXII 

SAMUEL ROGERS 

Samuel Rogers was another friend of these days, who 
must have special prominence here because Dickens dedi- 
cated The Old Curiosity Shop to him. Of all the novelist's 
friendships there surely is none at first thought more puz- 
zling than this one. We find Dickens always speaking or 
writing of him in terms of regard, or of friendly feeling, 
yet scarcely a writer who knew the man and has left any- 
thing like a portrait of him, has painted a pleasant picture. 
I am not so sure that I would accept William Jerdan's esti- 
mate of any man too literally, but his estimate of Samuel 
Rogers is unpleasantly in accord with the portraits preserved 
for us by most other writers of the time. ". . .It did not 
appear," he says, "that the nonagenarian (whatever he might 
have enjoyed half a century before) had any friends. I never 
saw about him any but acquaintances or toadies. Had he 
outlived them? No; he was not of a nature to have any 
friends. . . . The posthumous laudation lavished upon him 
by his political cronies was purely of the de mortuis nil nisi 
bonum kind. He never received that coin when alive; for, 
if the truth be told, his liberality and generosity were small 
specks which could not bear blazon, and he was radically ill- 
tempered." 

How are we to reconcile this with the terms of Dickens's 
dedication of The Old Curiosity Shop? 

To 

SAMUEL ROGERS, 

One of the few Men 
Whom Riches and Honoub 

Have not spoiled, 

And who have preserved 

In High Places 

Active Sympathy with 

The Poorest 

And Humblest 

Of their Kind. 

147 



148 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Puzzling, is it not? Yet, Barry Cornwall gives corrobo- 
rative testimony. "It has been rumored," says Proctor, 
"that he was a sayer of bitter things. I know he was a 
giver of good things — kind and amiable where a potion was 
wanted, never ostentatious or oppressive, and always a friend 
in need." I suppose the truth is that Rogers had a soft 
spot somewhere in his heart, and that only men of genuine 
human sympathy, such as Dickens and Proctor were, were 
able to see beneath a decidedly forbidding surface. All the 
same, I think the old man was not much more than an 
acquaintance of Dickens's. There was a friendliness rather 
than a friendship. We have to observe that to a young writer 
like Dickens there was a glamour surrounding a man who 
belonged to a generation that had passed away. Rogers 
was, indeed, a relic of the past, more so than Leigh Hunt, 
more so, even, than Landor ; for Hunt was but little past the 
prime of life when Dickens sprang into fame, and though 
Landor was much older, his joy in life had not abated; he 
lived still in the present. Rogers was yet older than Landor. 
To Dickens, I fancy, he was more of a curiosity than any- 
thing else — though it is certain that the novelist liked him, 
and does seem to have been a favourite. I cannot but think 
that Dickens was admitted to greater intimacy than Jerdan 
and some others; I cannot but think that the bright, joyous 
young Boz, overflowing, in the first flush of his success, with 
the joy of life, must have captivated- — so far as it was pos- 
sible for such a man to be captivated" — the cynical old 
banker-poet. 

This friendship — or friendliness — between Boz and the 
wizened old poet was assuredly a quaint association. But, 
after all, Rogers had moved in literary and artistic circles — 
had been the centre of a brilliant circle for a couple of gen- 
erations or more — and to the young Boz, fresh from poverty 
and drudgery, it must have meant much to be admitted to 
such a circle. That Rogers liked him there is plenty of evi- 
dence to show. It was not Dickens's books that attracted 
him, for we are told that "he did not recognise how great a 
genius was that of Charles Dickens," whilst Mr. H. Ellis 
Roberts says x that "when Dickens published the Christmas 

1 "Samuel Rogers and his Circle." 




Samuel Rogers 
From a Drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. 



SAMUEL ROGERS 149 

Carol in 1843, lie sent a copy to Rogers, hoping he would 
like the slight fancy it embodied, but the old man was now 
beyond appreciating the new genius: he fell asleep over the 
first half-hour's reading because he found it so dull ; the next 
hour was so painful that he had to finish it in order to remove 
the impression." 

No, it was not Dickens's books that attracted Rogers. 
May it not have been that the presence of the buoyant young 
writer was to the old man as the first sight of the blue sky 
and green fields is to the invalid who has just arisen from a 
sick-bed with hope that had been almost extinguished once 
more restored? May it not have been that this young man's 
hearty enjoyment of life carried its infection even into the 
heart of this rich old bachelor, and brought back to him 
the days when he might have written "The Pleasures of 
Hope"? 

Samuel Carter Hall — not a very charitable critic — tells us 
of Rogers that "you could not fancy when you looked upon 
him that you saw a good man. It was a repulsive counte- 
nance; to say it was ugly would be to pay it a compliment, 
and I verily believe it was indicative of the naturally 
shrivelled heart and contracted soul." Henry Fothergill 
Chorley is less sweeping. He tells us how perverse and in- 
human Rogers could be where he did not like, and how uncivil 
he could be, but he also states his belief that the crookedness 
and the incivility of some of his humours "had nothing to do 
with his heart and his hand when the one told the other to 
give. Rogers's hospitality to poets," he adds, "might be 
pleasant to himself, and no less so his handsome reception 
of every handsome woman, but for the poor struggling, suf- 
fering man of genius, and to the garret, ... he was, I 
believe, a deliberate almoner, a liberal distributor, and a 
frequent visitor. Bilious, vicious, cruel, as he was with his 
tongue, Rogers was, I know, a kindly and indefatigable friend 
to many humble men and to a few less humble men." 

We shall be pretty safe in accepting Chorley's estimate in 
preference to Hall's, for after all, if Rogers had been every- 
thing that Hall and Jerdan say he was, he would never have 
been for more than half a century the centre of such a bril- 
liant circle. For all the members of that circle could not 
have been toadies; there must have been something that at- 



150 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

tracted them to the man. If he had been such a man as 
Hall and Jerdan say he was, can we believe that Dickens 
would have accompanied his Dedication of The Old Curiosity 
Shop with such a letter as this? — "Let me have my 'Pleas- 
ures of Memory* in connection with this book by dedicating 
it to a poet whose writings (as all the world knows) are 
replete with genius and earnest feeling; and to a man whose 
daily life (as all the world does not know) is one of active 
sympathy with the poorest and humblest of his kind." — 
"As all the world does not know." As Hall and Jerdan did 
not know; as Dickens, we may be very sure, did know. There 
must have been a side to the old man's character which was 
revealed only to the few, and one of those few was Charles 
Dickens. 






CHAPTER XXIII 

THOMAS HOOD 

And now we come to a far more lovable man than either 
of the two from whom we have just parted. Naturally Tom 
Hood was one of Dickens's friends. We should expect to find 
a strong affinity between two such men. Each was a humor- 
ist who used his great gifts of humour for the highest pur- 
poses ; each had a burning sympathy with the poor and suf- 
fering and an intense hatred of social injustice; the work 
of each was governed supremely by the heart. 

Each had a high opinion of the other's work. Hood's 
article on the first volume of Master Humphrey's Clock is 
well known. It is the article in which he wrote of Dickens: 
"The poor are his especial clients. He delights to show 
Worth in low places — living up a court, for example, with 
Kit and the industrious washerwoman, his mother. To 
exhibit Honesty holding a gentleman's horse, or Poverty be- 
stowing alms." It was to this article Dickens referred in his 
preface to the first cheap edition of The Old Curiosity Shop 
in 1845 : 

"I have a sorrowful pride in one recollection asso- 
ciated with 'Little Nell.' While she was yet upon her 
wanderings, not then concluded, there appeared in a 
literary journal, an essay of which she was the principal 
theme, so earnestly, so eloquently, and so tenderly ap- 
preciative of her and of all her shadowy kith and kin, 
that it would have been insensibility in me if I could 
have read it without an unusual glow of pleasure and 
encouragement. Long afterwards, and when I had come 
to know him well, and to see him stout of heart going 
slowly down into his grave, I knew the writer of that 
essay to be Thomas Hood.'* 

151 



152 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

The article appeared in 1840, and Dickens's words suggest 
that he was not personally acquainted with the poet then. 
But before that, Hood had many times expressed his appre- 
ciation of Boz's work. To Dilke, in 1839, for instance, he 
had written: 

"As regards Boz, his morale is better than his ma- 
terial, though that is often very good; it is wholesome 
reading; the drift is natural, along with the great 
human currents, and not against them. His purpose, 
sound, with that honest independence of thinking, which 
is the constant adjunct of true-heartedness, recognising 
good in low places, and evil in high ones, in short a 
manly assertion of Truth as truth. Compared with such 
merits, his defect of overpainting, and the like, are but 
spots on the sun. For these merits alone, he deserves 
all the success he has obtained, and long may he enjoy 
them!" 

And Dickens had shown in the same year his sympathy 
with the poet, with whom, at the most, he was then very 
slightly acquainted. For it is in reference to this year that 
Forster says : "I find him noticing a book by Thomas Hood : 
'rather poor, but I have not said so, because Hood is too, 
and ill besides.' " The book referred to was "Up the 
Rhine," and the review was written for the "Examiner." 

When Dickens and Hood first met I cannot discover, but 
it is recorded that after that meeting the poet went home 
and told his wife to cut off his hand and bottle it, because 
he had shaken hands with Boz! By 1841 they were close 
personal friends. "Didn't you enjoy Pickwick?" writes the 
poet to a friend in April of that year. "It is so very Eng- 
lish ! I felt sure you would. Boz is a very good fellow, and 
he and I are very good friends." In the following year Hood 
was one of the company at the Greenwich dinner to welcome 
Dickens back from America. I shall earn no one's ill-favour 
if I quote his account of that dinner, which he wrote to Mrs. 
Elliot. 

"Jerdan was the Vice, and a certain person, not very 
well adapted to -fill a Chair, was to have occupied the 



THOMAS HOOD 153 

Opposite Virtue, but on the score of ill-health I begged 
off, and Captain Marryat presided instead. On his right 
Dickens and Monckton Milnes, the poetical M.P. ; on 
his left Sir John Wilson, T. H., and for my left-hand 
neighbour Doctor Elliotsow. . . . The Kelso man was 
supported by Forster and Stanfield the painter. 
Amongst the rest were Charles and Tom Landseer. . . . 
Father Prout and Ainsworth; these two were at paper 
war — therefore some six, including a clergyman, were 
put between them. Proctor, alias Barry Cornwall, and 
Barham, otherwise Ingoldsby, Cruikshank and Catter- 
mole, a Dr. Quynne or Quin, 1 and a Rev. Mr. Wilde. 2 
"Well, we drank 'the Boz' with a delectable clatter, 
which drew from him a good warm-hearted speech, in 
which he hinted the great advantage of going to 
America for the pleasure of coming back again; and 
pleasantly described the embarrassing attentions of the 
Transatlantickers, who made his private house and pri- 
vate cabin particularly public. He looked very well, 
and had a younger brother along with him. . . . Then 
we had more songs. Barham chanted a Robin Hood 
ballad, and Cruikshank sang a burlesque ballad of Lord 
Bateman ; and somebody, unknown to me, gave a capital 
imitation of a French showman. Then we toasted Mrs. 
Boz, and the Chairman, and Vice, and the Traditional 
Priest 3 sang the 'Deep deep sea' in his deep, deep voice; 
and then we drank to Proctor, who wrote the same song ; 
also Sir J. Wilson's good health, and Cruikshank's and 
Ainsworth's. . . . Jerdan as Jerdanish as usual on such 
occasions — you know how paradoxically he is quite at 
home in dining out. As to myself, I had to make my 
second maiden speech, for Monckton Milnes proposed 
my health in terms my modesty allows me to repeat to 
you; but my memory won't. However, I ascribed the 
toast to my notoriously bad health, and assured them 
that their wishes had already improved it — that I felt 
a brisker circulation — a more genial warmth about the 
heart, and explained that a certain trembling of my 
hands were not from palsy, or my old ague, but an in- 

1 Quin, of course. i ? The Rev. James White. » Father Prout. 



154 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

clinatlon in my hand to shake itself with every one 
present. Whereupon I had to go through the friendly 
ceremony with as many of the company as were within 
reach, besides a few more who came express from the 
other end of the table. . . . Boz kindly sent me in his 
own carriage." 

In 1844 Dickens promised a contribution to "Hood's 
Magazine and Comic Miscellany," and Hood wrote to him: 
"My dear Dickens, — I cannot say how delighted I was to 
learn from my friend Ward that you had promised me a 
little bit of writing to help me to launch afloat again. It 
has become a cruel business, and I really wanted to help in it, 
or I should not have announced it, knowing how much you 
have to do." The "bit of writing" was Threatening Letter 
to Thomas Hood, from an ancient Gentleman x — a satire on 
the existing craze for the famous midget, Tom Thumb. 

At the end of 1844 Hood took to his bed finally, yet there 
he wrote a review of The Chimes. 

i See Miscellaneous Papers. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LEIGH HUNT 

The friendship with Leigh Hunt was one of those formed 
through Forster in the first days of popularity. The poet, 
however, was never one of the inner Dickens circle. Indeed, 
it would be nearer accuracy to say that Dickens was a mem- 
ber of Hunt's circle, than that the author of "Abou Ben 
Adhem" was of the Dickens circle. For Hunt belonged to 
an older school, although he was only fifty-two years old when 
Dickens leaped into fame. He had suffered imprisonment 
for his political views, had known and loved Shelley, upon 
the immortal light of whose funeral pile he had gazed, had 
worshipped at the Byron shrine — had, indeed, been a planet 
in the firmament of letters, long before the Dickens planet 
had assumed the dimensions of a distant star. But there was 
a genuine friendship. Hunt recognised Dickens's genius, and 
appreciated his personal worth, whilst Dickens perceived the 
true sweetness of Hunt's character, and loved his oddities. 

Dickens, as we have noted, was introduced to Hunt by 
Forster, and on the very next day that "mutual friend" re- 
ceived a letter from the poet, saying, "What a face is his 
to meet in a drawing-room! It has the life and soul in it 
of fifty human beings." There are very few records of meet- 
ings between Hunt and Dickens, and not one of the novelist's 
letters to his friend seems to have been preserved; but from 
that first meeting there sprang a friendship which was not 
broken except by death. They must have met often, though 
obviously we should not expect to find Hunt sharing in those 
long country walks and rides indulged in almost daily by 
Dickens and Forster, Ainsworth and Maclise. It would be 
difficult, for instance, to imagine Leigh Hunt tramping out 
to Jack Straw's Castle, and enjoying at that "good 'ouse" 
a "red-hot chop"! But we find in 1839 Dickens writing to 
J. P. Harley: "This is my birthday. Many happy returns 

155 



156 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

of the day to you and me. I took it into my head yesterday 
to get up an impromptu dinner on this auspicious occasion 
< — only my own folks, Leigh Hunt, Ainsworth, and Forster. 
. . . Lord bless my soul ! Twenty-seven years old. Who'd 
have thought it? I never did I But I grow sentimental." 

In 1847 Dickens gave evidence of the genuineness of the 
regard in which he held Hunt, and numbered himself among 
the many who had rendered practical aid to this least worldly 
and practical of men. Hunt tells us in his "Autobiography" 
that throughout his life the multiplication table had been a 
mystery to him. He had been indebted to Shelley and to 
Byron, whilst a relative of the former had made him an allow- 
ance, and still, with it all, he had always lived from hand to 
mouth. Not because he was lacking in principle — as with 
Skimpole — but simply because though in the world, he was 
never of it. And now, in his closing years, the literary men 
of a new generation were to help him, as those of his earlier 
years had done. Dickens rallied round him that wonderful 
company of amateur actors to which reference has already 
been made so often. It was decided to give performances of 
"Every Man in his Humour" in London and the provinces, 
but while the arrangements were still incomplete Hunt was 
granted a Civil List pension of £200 a year, and in conse- 
quence the London performances were cancelled, and it was 
agreed to play only at Manchester and Liverpool. 

And now to the unfortunate Skimpole incident. Un- 
doubtedly Dickens cannot be acquitted of a serious breach 
of good taste. The pity of it all was that men came to say, 
"Skimpole is Leigh Hunt." It is not an exaggeration to say 
that this is the notion of the average man in the street to 
this very day. And yet, on the testimony of every one who 
knew him, the notion is utterly wrong. As a matter of fact, 
the whole of the trouble arose out of Skimpole's wwlikeness 
to his original — an apparent paradox but the actual truth. 
Few English men of letters have been more charming or better 
men than Hunt. Even S. C. Hall speaks well of him, which 
is saying much. This is what he says of Leigh Hunt: "His 
famous sonnet, 'Abou Ben Adhem,' may have been inspired 
by an Eastern apothegm, but it was none the less an outpour- 
ing of his own large heart." No higher praise was ever 
uttered of any man. James Payn says that selfishness and 



ii 



LEIGH HUNT 157 

baseness had nought to do with Hunt: "they were utterly 
opposed to his character." Dickens himself says that Hunt's 
life was "of the most amiable and domestic kind, that his 
wants were few, that his way of life was frugal, that he was 
a man of small expenses, no ostentations, a diligent labourer, 
and a secluded man of letters." 

How came Dickens, then, to pillory such a man as "a sen- 
timentalist, brilliant, vivacious, and engaging, but thor- 
oughly selfish and unprincipled"? The most commonly ac- 
cepted idea is that he merely wanted to transpose into his 
book the scntimentalism, and the brilliant, vivacious, and 
engaging qualities of Hunt, and that he made the mistake 
of giving those qualities to a selfish and unprincipled man, 
never dreaming that with his readers the evil as well as the 
good would be attributed to Hunt — that, in short, he was 
charmed with Hunt's engaging ways, and desired to — shall 
we say immortalise them? Assuming that this is the whole 
truth, there would have been no harm in it if he had given 
those engaging ways to a pleasant character. In the very 
same book he treated another poet-friend in this way; but 
gave no offence, because he insisted on the innate tenderness 
and goodness underlying Boythorne's rough and brusque 
exterior — because, in fact, he gave a complete picture of the 
man. In the case of Leigh Hunt he placed all the charming 
oddities and whimsicalities upon a thoroughly odious char- 
acter. It was bad taste; and that Dickens could have been 
guilty of it will never cease to astonish us. 

But is this the whole truth? I have always had an idea 
that it is not. I cannot resist the thought that there was 
something more in it than this. However much Dickens 
might like Hunt, and however much he might be charmed with 
the poet's manner, is it not probable that he would dislike 
very strongly some of the extravagant — almost perverse — 
views on morality that Hunt was in the habit of expressing 
in print and in conversation? And is it not probable that 
the novelist tried to present an object lesson of their dan- 
gers? Dickens was as strong a believer as ever lived in the 
importance of self-reliance. Dilettantism was anathema to 
him: we recall how, even in his sincerely appreciative "In 
Memoriam" article on Thackeray he hints at his resentment 
of what he thought was that great writer's failure to take 



158 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

his art seriously. And though Hunt was undoubtedly a hard 
worker, there was a suggestion of the dilettante in him which 
would irritate Dickens. Forster quotes a passage from the 
"Tatlcr," which he says had "unluckily attracted Dickens's 
notice".: 

"Supposing us to be in want of patronage, and in pos- 
session of talent enough to make it an honour to notice 
us, we would much rather have some great and com- 
paratively private friend, rich enough to assist us, and 
amiable enough to render obligation delightful, than be- 
come the public property of any man, or of any gov- 
ernment. . . . If a divinity had given us our choice, 
we should have said — make us La Fontaine, who goes 
and lives twenty years with some rich friend, as inno- 
cent of any harm in it as a child, and who writes what 
he thinks charming verses, sitting all day under a tree." 

To those who understand Hunt, Forster's hint that this 
must not be taken too seriously, as expressing its writer's 
own morality, is unnecessary. But there it is, printed and 
published for all to read. We may here quote a passage 
from the "Autobiography": 

"I would not have missed the obligations I have had 
from my friends ; no, hardly to have been exempt from 
all the cares of money; so little do I hold with that 
writer who spoke the other day of the 'degrading obli- 
gations of private friendship.' I see beyond that. But 
I do not the less hold with him that it is 'comely and 
sweet' to be able to earn one's own sufficiency. I only 
think that it should not be made so hard a matter to 
do so as it very often is by the systems of society, and 
by the effects which we have in reserve for us even 
before we are born, and in our very temperaments as 
well as fortunes ; and I think also that the world would 
have been the losers in a very large way — far beyond 
what the utilitarians suppose, and yet on their own 
ground — if certain men of a lively and improvident 
genius — humanists of the most persuasive order, had 
not sometimes felt themselves under the necessity of 



LEIGH HUNT 159 

being assisted in a smaller way. But I desire, for my 
own part, not to be excused in anything, in which I 
do not take the whole of my fellow-creatures and their 
errors along with me. Let me not be left out of the 
pale of humanity for praise or for blame, and I am con- 
tent. I desire only to teach and be taught, or if that 
be too presumptuous a saying, to learn and compare 
notes. ..." 

Now, there is truth in all this ; and to those who knew the 
man it was unobjectionable, but it is a dangerous doctrine 
to be taught broadcast. Such sentiments might be moral 
enough coming from Hunt, but let a thriftless, unprincipled 
Harold Skimpole imbibe them, and the danger that lurks in 
them is very quickly recognised. Such, I think, may have 
been Dickens's object. He wanted to show how fine is the 
line that divides Leigh Hunt and Harold Skimpole — how 
easily such sentiments may be perverted from truth into mere 
sophistry. 

This does not mean that we need doubt him when he says 
that "He had no more thought, God forgive him! that the 
admired original would ever be charged with the imaginary 
vices of the fictitious creature, than he has himself ever 
thought of charging the blood of Desdemona and Othello on 
the innocent Academy model who sat for Iago's leg in the 
picture." The trouble was that he did not stop to consider 
that it was a sheer impossibility to carry out his purpose 
without sugggesting such an intention. To carry out such 
a purpose he was bound to give us a corrupt Leigh Hunt: 
there was no escape from it. The abyss was indicated while 
the book was in progress. He was genuinely surprised, and 
made many alterations, but it was too late : the damage was 
done. It was the old, old story : 

"Harm is wrought by want of thought; 
As well as want of heart." 

Hunt did not recognise the likeness. It was left to 
"friends" to point it out. Dickens was more hurt than his 
victim. He recognised that there was only one course for 
him — full and frank apology. That was forthcoming, and 



160 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

that the relations of the two men, though temporarily 
strained, were not permanently affected is shown by the fact 
that Hunt wrote frequently for Household Words. In the 
very first number he had a poem, "Abraham, the Fire-Wor- 
shipper," and in 1 853-4 there appeared the papers now 
known as "The Old Court Suburb." 



CHAPTER XXV 



CAPTAIN MAREYAT 



We have it on Forster's authority that among the first in 
Dickens's liking in these days was Captain Marryat. Un- 
fortunately their friendship covered but a brief span of 
years. It did not start before 1837, for certain, probably 
not before 1839, and the gallant sailor and brilliant novelist 
died in 1848. The two men had a high regard for each 
other's genius, and in temperament they were not unlike. 
Both had "roughed it" — though in different ways — both 
had met all sorts and conditions of men, and their experi- 
ence of the world had left them without any traces of cyni- 
cism ; both were true humorists ; both were at their best in 
the social circle. Forster, recording Dickens's delight in 
children's parties, says : "There was no one who approached 
him on these occasions, excepting only our attached friend 
Captain Marryat, who had a frantic delight in dancing, 
especially with children, of whom and whose enjoyments he 
was as fond as it became so thoroughly good-hearted a 
man to be." 

Marryat's earliest reference to Dickens occurs in reply to 
an objection that had been taken to one of his stories ap- 
pearing in serial form in the "Era." 

"I would rather" (he said) "write for the instruc- 
tion, or even the amusement of the poor than for the 
amusement of the rich ; and I would sooner raise a smile 
or create an interest in the honest mechanic or agri- 
cultural labourer who requires relaxation than I would 
contribute to dispel the ennui of those who loll on their 
couches and wonder in their idleness what they shall do 
next. Is the rich man only to be amused? Are mirth 
and laughter to be made a luxury confined to the upper 
classes and denied to the honest and hard-working 

161 



162 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

artisan? I have lately given my aid to cHeaper litera- 
ture, and I consider that the most decided step which 
I have taken is the insertion of this tale in a weekly 
newspaper — by which means it will be widely dissemi- 
nated among the lower classes, who, until lately (and the 
chief credit of the alteration is due to Mr. Dickens), 
had hardly an idea of such recreation." 

The man who spoke there would be likely to have much in 
common with Dickens. They met frequently, and Marryat 
was always a welcome member of the early Dickens circle. 
In 1842 he presided at the dinner at Greenwich at which 
Dickens was welcomed home from America by a few of his 
more intimate friends. Probably the fact that he, too, had 
toured America and had had very much the same experi- 
ence as Dickens earned this honour for him. 

In 1842 Dickens gave much offence in America on account 
of his stand on the copyright question. I think it is very 
probable that Marryat influenced him on this point. He 
had spent a couple of years (1837-9) in America, and had 
given offence in the same way. It was a very important 
principle that was at stake. Marryat had fought for it 
bravely; Dickens could not but know that his influence was 
even greater than his friend's, and he took up the fight. We 
have no evidence that Marryat did influence him, but I think 
there can be very little doubt on the point. Marryat greatly 
enjoyed Dickens's tilt at our cousins in American Notes. 
"It gives me great pleasure," we find Dickens writing to 
him in the summer of 1843, "to find that you like the tick- 
ling. I shall go in again before I have done, and give the 
eagle a final poke under his fifth rib." 

Marryat settled at Langham in 1843, and thenceforward 
he took his place in the old circle but rarely. He became 
absorbed in farming — which proved an expensive hobby — 
and it was very difficult indeed to draw him to London. 
Stanfield tried in 1844 : 

"Charles Dickens is about to leave England with his 
family for one whole year to visit foreign parts, previ- 
ous to which we are about to bestow on the said Charles 
Dickens a complimentary dinner to be eaten at Green- 



CAPTAIN MARRYAT 163 

wich. Now, Forster, Maclise, and myself, who have the 
arrangement of the above dinner, would be very glad 
indeed if you could, and would make one amongst us 
on that occasion. I wish you would! I really think 
a run up to town would do you good; at any rate, it 
would rejoice us more to have you with us on the 
present occasion." 

But it was "no go"; even such an invitation as that 
could not tempt him. A little later, however, he ran up to 
town, and Dickens was among the friends he visited. At the 
end of the year Forster pressed him to come up for the forth- 
coming theatricals, but the reply was, "I dare not." 

In 1843, however, he was happy in the anticipation of a 
visit from some of these old friends. Writing to Stanfield, 
he says: 

"Although I shall be in town at the end of this 
month, I write to you that we may not be disappointed 
in our intended party down here in September, and I 
think you had better at once make the arrangements 
as to the time of coming so as to meet the wishes of 
all. I believe we have only mentioned Landseer, Mac- 
lise, Dickens, Forster, and yourself. Are there any 
more that you would wish to add to the list?" 

He evidently also wrote to Dickens, for on September 6 
we find the latter writing to him from Broadstairs: "I 
fear I cannot say with any degree of certainty, sooner than 
the third week in October for the pleasures of Langham, 
but, please God, I shall be ready about the 19th or the 
20th. I will make this known to Maclise and Forster, and 
we will send you a threatening letter when the time ap- 
proaches." A month later — on October 9 — Marry at writes 
to Forster to know if the friends are coming. There is no 
record as to whether the visit ever took place. 

Marry at died in 1848. When the end was very near, the 
fact was not recognised by his friends. He was at Brighton 
in March; so was Dickens, who wrote to him the following 
letter : 



164 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"I was coming round to see you this morning, but 
feel myself obliged to go to London by the two o'clock 
train with no time for preparation. As I shall not be 
back until to-morrow night, and as I fear you will have 
left in the interval, I write this to say that Kate and I 
were delighted to find you had been here and were 
so happily recovered from your illness. I assure you, 
my dear fellow, I was heartily rejoiced and drank your 
health with all honours. Do write me word in Devon- 
shire Terrace some fortnight hence, where you are and 
how you are; and if you be within reach let us fore- 
gather." 

But he had not recovered from his illness, and there were 
to be no more foregatherings. In August Marryat entered 
into the higher life. His daughter tells us that as he lay 
dying, in his semi-conscious condition produced by constant 
doses of morphia, "he held imaginary conversations with 
Dickens, or Bulwer, or some of his old shipmates." 



CHAPTER XXVI 

CHARLES KNIGHT 

In the Shakespeare Society at this time Dickens was 
forming other friendships no less notable than those we have 
already considered. Talf ourd and Maclise were members ; 
so were Thackeray and McCready, Jerrold and Stanfield, 
Cattermole and the Landseers — two of them, at any rate, 
Charles and Tom. Others were Frank Stone, a well-beloved 
friend, B. W. Procter, Charles Knight, and Laman Blanch- 
ard, Jerrold's friend. Of the last named we will speak 
presently, but the other two may well find their places here. 

Charles Knight — "Many-sided and true-hearted Charles 
Knight," as Forster called him — was a much older man than 
Dickens — he was editing a newspaper at Windsor when 
Dickens was born — and they had been acquainted from the 
earliest years of Dickens's authorship. I cannot find when 
they first met ; Knight himself could not recall. But he does 
recall that in 1836 Dickens's uncle, Mr. Barrow, who was 
the conductor of "The Mirror of Parliament," sometimes 
meeting him at the printing office of Mr. Clowes, would tell 
him of his clever young relative who was the best reporter 
in the Gallery. He tells us also that he and Dickens were 
on tolerably familiar terms in the days of the Shakespeare 
Society. He says that the Society comprised too many 
members for readings and discussions as was originally in- 
tended, and its chance of promoting the friendly con- 
viviality of men of congenial tastes was very soon destroyed. 
And then he describes the following incident which brought 
about the dissolution of the Society: 

"There was a very full attendance at a dinner at 
which Mr. Dickens presided. His friend, Mr. John 
Forster, was at his side. I sat at a side table with a 
remarkable-looking young man opposite to me who I 

165 



166 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

was told was the Michael Angelo Titmarsh of 'Fraser's 
Magazine.' Mr. Forster rose to propose a toast. He 
was proceeding with that force and fluency which he 
always possessed when there were some interruptions 
by the cracking of nuts and jingling of glasses amongst 
the knot of young barristers, who were probably fas- 
tidious as to every style of eloquence but the forensic. 
The speaker expressed himself angrily; there were re- 
torts of a very unpleasant character. The Chairman 
in vain tried to enforce order; but 'the fun,' if fun it 
could be called, 'grew fast and furious.' Previous to 
the dinner, Laman Blanchard . . . had asked me to 
propose the health of the Chairman. During a lull 
in the storm I was enabled to do so, saying something 
about throwing oil upon the waves. But it was all in 
vain. Mr. Dickens at length abandoned the chair, and 
there was an end of the Shakespeare Club." 

At this time there was but a bare acquaintance. We find, 
'however, a facetious reference to Knight in the amusing 
letter that Dickens wrote to Forster announcing the death 
of his raven : "I am not wholly free from suspicion of poison. 
A malicious butcher has been heard to say that he would 
'do' for him: his plea was that he would not be molested in 
taking orders down the mews by any bird that wore a tail. 
Other persons have also been heard to threaten : among 
others, Charles Knight, who has just started a weekly pub- 
lication price fourpence: Bamaby being, as you know, 
threepence." Which reminds us that Knight was the pioneer 
of cheap literature for the masses, and that in his very valu- 
able work in this direction he had, as might have been ex- 
pected, the earnest sympathy of Dickens. In 1844* he com- 
menced the publication of "Knight's Weekly Volumes," and 
a copy of the prospectus, entitled "Book Clubs for all 
Readers," he sent to Dickens. The scheme was to estab- 
lish a cheap book club — to publish high-class works at low- 
est possible prices, and, by a system of small weekly con- 
tributions, to enable families to acquire good libraries. 
Dickens's reply was : "I had already seen your prospectus, 
and if I can be of the feeblest use in advancing a project so 
intimately connected with an end on which my heart is 



CHARLES KNIGHT 167 

set — the liberal education of the people — I shall be sin- 
cerely glad. All good wishes and success attend you." 

In 1848 the two men were much more closely associated 
than hitherto. In the announcement of the amateur theatri- 
cals organised by Dickens and his friends it was set forth 
that the Directors of General Arrangements would be Mr. 
John Payne Collier, Mr. Charles Knight, and Mr. Peter 
Cunningham. When the company went on tour Knight and 
Cunningham accompanied them. During the tour Knight 
inevitably became more intimate with Dickens, but still, he 
says, they rarely met in society. It was Household Words 
that brought them into close relationship. A week or so 
before the appearance of the first number, Dickens wrote to 
Knight inviting him to become a contributor. The invitation 
was accepted, and from that time dated a close friendship 
between the men, a friendship so earnest that for years 
Dickens never failed to dine with Knight on the latter's 
birthday. In several of Dickens's letters we find references 
to this custom, whilst there can be no mistaking the hearti- 
ness of invitations. Indeed, there is no doubt but that they 
were true and fast friends, as the Editors of the Letters 
record. In July 1851 Dickens wrote from Broadstairs: 

"You say you are coming down to look for a place 
this week. Now, Jerrold says he is coming on Thursday 
by the cheap express at half-past twelve, to return 
with me for the play early on Monday morning. Can't 
you make that a holiday too? I have promised him our 
only spare bed, but we'll find you a bed hard by, and 
shall be delighted to 'eat and drink you,' as an American 
once wrote to me. We will make expeditions to Heme 
Bay, Canterbury, where not? and drink deep draughts 
of fresh air. Come! They are beginning to cut the 
corn. You will never see the country so pretty. If 
you stay in town these days, you'll do nothing. Say 
you'll come !" 

I do not know whether that particular invitation was 
accepted, but we do know that in this year Knight spent a 
great deal of time with Dickens, especially at Broadstairs. 
The reference in this letter to the play reminds us that 



168 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Knight was one of the "splendid strollers." In 1848, we 
have seen, he was one of the organisers of the theatricals. 
In 1851 he was one of the players. He was invited by 
Dickens to play Hodge in "Not so Bad as we Seem" in the 
Guild of Literature and Art performances. Referring to 
this, Knight says : "For myself, I should have been well con- 
tented with 'Hodge, the merry servant.' But my profes- 
sional tastes and consequent histrionic capacity for playing 
the part of a scheming publisher of the days of Sir Robert 
Walpole were considered, and I had to rehearse the part of 
Jacob Tonson, the bookseller." 

In 1864 Knight was in the Isle of Wight when his birth- 
day came round, and Dickens wrote to him: "We knew of 
your being in the Isle of Wight, and had said that we should 
have this year to drink your health in your absence. Rely 
on my being always ready and happy to renew our old friend- 
ship in the flesh. In the spirit it needs no renewal, because 
it has no break." 

Knight contributed regularly to Household Words, and we 
find Dickens, in his letters, frequently expressing his appre- 
ciation of his friend's work. His contributions included a 
series entitled "Shadows," and there are several references to 
these — always appreciative references, but often containing 
helpful criticisms and suggestions. 

I doubt whether Knight was not of a rather too serious 
cast of mind to be entirely at home with Dickens at all times, 
but the two men had much in common. They were both 
strong believers and advocates of the better education of the 
people. Knight's life was spent in bringing general knowl- 
edge and the best literature within reach of the masses. Many 
men who have rendered less service to their fellows and to 
human progress are better known to posterity, but he was 
in the truest sense a doer of good. Dickens's services to man- 
kind are too widely acknowledged to need emphasis here. He 
served his fellows in many ways, and not least in his advo- 
cacy of education for the people. Here the two men had a 
common ground of sympathy, so that their friendship was, 
after all, the most natural thing in the world. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

"barry Cornwall" and his daughter 

In his book "John Forster and his Friendships," Mr. R. 
Renton quotes a letter from B. W. Procter to Forster, dated 
1853, and says that it was written quite early in their friend- 
ship. That is obviously incorrect. Forster himself tells us 
that. Procter was one of the most prominent members of 
the Shakespeare Society which broke up in 1839, or there- 
abouts, and of which, as we have already seen, Forster was 
a leading spirit. Nay, they had both been friends of Lamb, 
who had died in 1834, so that Forster's friendship with 
Procter must have been one of the earliest he formed, dating 
from at least fourteen years, and probably twenty years, 
earlier than the year which Mr. Renton describes as "quite 
early in their friendship." We may take it as quite certain 
that Dickens came to know Procter through Forster. And 
from the first the novelist and the poet were on the best of 
terms. It was natural. Procter was a peculiarly lovable 
man, with a peculiar gentleness, "childlike, without being 
childish, with a keen, wholesome enjoyment of wholesome 
things, and an unfailing buoyancy of spirit." Such a man 
could not but have a strong attraction for Dickens. 

From the beginning he loved the company of his friend, 
who, in the 'forties, was one of the innermost circle with 
Forster and Maclise and Ains worth. Procter was one of the 
little company at the Greenwich dinner in 1842, and until 
he grew too old (he was twenty-five years older than 
Dickens) they had frequent social meetings. 

For Household Words and All the Year Roimd he wrote 
a^ great deal, and Dickens valued his contributions very 
highly indeed. Chief among th^se contributions were his 
"Songs of the Trades," to which Dickens often refers in his 
letters. For instance, in December 1858 he writes : 

169 



170 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"A thousand thanks for the little song. I am 
charmed with it, and shall be delighted to brighten 
Household Words with such a wise and genial light. I 
no more believe that your poetical faculty has gone by 
than I believe that you have yourself passed to the better 
land. You and it will travel thither in company, rely 
upon it. So I still hope to hear more of the trade-songs, 
and to learn that the blacksmith has hammered out no 
end of iron into good fashion of verse, like a cunning 
workman, as I know him of old to be." 

And in March 1859 he writes: "I think the songs are 
Simply admirable! And I have no doubt of this being a 
popular feature in All the Year Round." 

As Procter grew old Dickens saw less and less of him, but 
the friendship remained as deep as ever, and in 1854 it was 
peculiarly sweetened by the discovery that the "Miss Mary 
Berwick" who had contributed verses to Household Words 
which had won Dickens's unstinted praise was really his old 
friend's daughter, Adelaide, whom he had known from her 
(childhood. That story does not need to be retold here. It 
was told by Dickens himself in the introduction he wrote 
[to her "Legends and Lyrics," published shortly after her 
ieath. She had said at home: "If I send him, in my own 
lame, verses that he does not honestly like, either it will be 
yery painful to him to return them, or he will print them for 
papa's sake, and not for their own. So I have made up my 
mind to take my chance fairly with the unknown volunteers." 
That was in the spring of 1853. Dickens liked the verses 
!for their own sake, and all contributions that "Miss Mary 
Berwick" cared to send were gladly welcomed. In that same 
year, 1853, she was invited to contribute to the Christmas 
number, and she responded with "The Angel's Story." In 
the following year, to The Seven Poor Travellers she con- 
tributed the third traveller's story. 

"Happening," says Dickens, "to be going to dine that day 
with an old and dear friend, distinguished in literature as 
Barry Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of that num- 
ber, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table, 
that it contained a very pretty poem written by a certain 
Miss Berwick. Next day brought me the disclosure that I 



"BARRY CORNWALL" 171 

had so spoken of the poem to the mother of its writer, in 
its writer's presence; that I had no such correspondent in 
existence as Miss Berwick; and that the name had been as- 
sumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss Adelaide 
Anne Procter." The remainder of the introduction is a very 
beautiful tribute to the memory of a pure and beautiful life. 
Until her death in 1864, Adelaide Procter continued to con- 
tribute to Household Words and All the Year Round. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



FRANK STONE AND HIS SON 



"My father must have been a remarkable man," said Mr. 
Marcus Stone to me, as, seated in his studio one afternoon, 
he was recalling for my benefit the days when he was inti- 
mate with Dickens, and with nearly everybody who was any- 
body in the literary and artistic London of the mid- Victorian 
period. "Yes," he said, in a tone of affectionate remem- 
brance, "a remarkable man. I often think of it. He was 
a Manchester man but moderately educated, a moderate 
artist who never made very much headway in his profession; 
yet, within two years of his coming to London an utterly 
obscure man, he was the intimate of many of the most famous 
men of the time." 

Frank Stone is remembered to-day chiefly as the father 
of Marcus Stone, but he must have been a man of marked 
individuality and great personal charm. He had not the 
knack of making money, but he had something much better, 
the knack of making friends. And one of the most valued 
friends he ever made was Charles Dickens. There was a 
great intimacy and genuine affection between him and the 
novelist, which lasted from the beginning to the end without 
interruption. It is probable that it was the Shakespeare 
Society that brought them together : * anyhow they met when 
Pickwick was still running its course. And, say the Editors 
of Dickens's Letters, Stone was especially included in the 
category of Dickens's most affectionate and intimate friends. 
They spent many a holiday together at Broadstairs and 
elsewhere, and it was at Bonchurch in 1849 that the artist 
painted a portrait of Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens, then 
two and a half years old, in which, says Forster, he very 

1 Stone was hon. sec, and the minute-book is still in the possession of one 
of his sons. 

172 



FRANK STONE AND HIS SON 173 

happily caught "a strange little weird, yet most attractive 
look in his large wondering eyes." 

For some time Stone occupied a portion of Tavistock 
House, Tavistock Square, as a studio, his family living in 
the country. In 1851 he brought his family to London, and 
they went to live in a smaller house in the same square, 
Dickens taking Tavistock House. Henceforth, until 
Dickens moved to Gadshill, the two families were near and 
intimate neighbours. 

Stone was one of the leading spirits in the amateur the- 
atricals — "one of the leading heavy men," as his son puts it. 
He played Justice Clement in "Every Man in his Humour" 
at the Royalty Theatre in 1845. Two years later he took 
part in the performances in aid of Leigh Hunt and John 
Poole. He was again prominent in the performances of 
1848, but this time he played George Downright in Ben 
Jonson's comedy. He played the same part at Knebworth 
in November 1850, and in the Guild of Literature and Art 
performances in the following year he appeared as the Duke 
of Middlesex in "Not so Bad as we Seem," whilst in "Mr. 
Nightingale's Diary" he was Mr. Nightingale. During the 
rehearsals Dickens wrote to Lytton: 

". . . The Duke comes out the best man in the play. 
I am happy to report to you that Stone does the hon- 
ourable manly side of that pride inexpressibly better 
than I could have supposed possible in him. The scene 
where he makes reparation to the slandered woman is 
certain to be an effect. It is not a jest upon the order of 
Dukes, but a great tribute to them. ... I see, in the 
Duke, the most estimable character in the piece. . . . 
The first time that scene with Hardman was seriously 
done, it made an effect on the company that quite sur- 
prised and delighted me; and whenever and wherever 
it is done . . . the result will be the same." 

Stone had the honour of doing three illustrations for The 
Haunted Man — "Milly and the Old Man"; "Milly and the 
Student" ; and "Milly and the Children." When he submitted 
his rough sketch for the first of these illustrations, Dickens 
wrote to him: 



174 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"We are unanimous. 

"The drawing of Milly on the chair is charming. I 
cannot tell you how much the little composition and 
expression please me. Do that, by all means. . . . 

"I am delighted to hear that you have your eye on 
her in the students' room. You will really, pictorially, 
make the little woman whom I love." 

These were the only illustrations that Stone did for his 
friend's books, but he designed the frontispiece for the first 
Cheap Edition of Martin Chuzzlewit in 1849, which shows 
Mark Tapley on his sick-bed. He also did one or two pic- 
tures of characters, in addition. He was commissioned by 
the novelist to paint a picture of 'Tilda Price, which picture 
in 1870 fetched £42. He also did pictures of Kate Nickleby 
and Madeline Bray which were engraved by Finder, and pub- 
lished by Chapman and Hall in 1848. 

Frank Stone died suddenly in 1859, to the very deep grief 
of Dickens. He did not leave any very substantial worldly 
inheritance, but, said his son, Marcus, to the Boz Club a 
few years ago, "he gave me the splendid inheritance of the 
friendship of Charles Dickens — a more precious inheritance 
than the wealth of a millionaire." Marcus Stone was, I am 
very certain, Dickens's favourite among all the young men 
that worshipped him in the last decade or so of his life. The 
relations between them were, indeed, almost those of father 
and son. Curiously enough, though his father had been in- 
timate with Dickens before Marcus was born, the son was 
ten years old before he met the great man. In his address 
to the Boz Club in 1910 he recalled the first meeting: 

"I had only just come to live in London with my 
father, and had the blessed privilege of rummaging in 
his studio. . . . There was a window in the studio, and 
near that stood a screen. One day I went behind the 
screen and looked into the garden, and there I saw a 
gentleman and two ladies. They were looking up at 
the house. Then I was fetched, and I remember going 
downstairs and being presented to the ladies and gen- 
tleman, and being ashamed of a very black pair of hands 
which were grasped by that blessed, noble, generous 



FRANK STONE AND HIS SON 175 

hand of Charles Dickens. That was the first time I saw 
him, when I was ten years old. And from that time he 
was constantly in my field of vision." 

Marcus Stone was a very precocious boy ; a bright, intelli- 
gent child ; and it was not long after this that he did his first 
Dickens illustration. He drew a picture of Poor Jo, and 
while he was working on it Dickens saw it. "That's very 
good," said the novelist. "You must give that to me when 
it is done." So he did; and nearly eighteen months later 
he received from Dickens a copy of A Child's History of 
England, with this letter: 

"My dear Marcus, 

"You made an excellent sketch from a book of 
mine which I have received (and have preserved) with 
great pleasure. Will you accept from me in remem- 
brance of it this little book? I believe it to be true, 
though it may be sometimes not as genteel as history 
has a habit of being." 

That book is to-day the artist's most cherished possession. 

From the beginning the boy was a warm favourite with 
the novelist, whose house was a second home to him. After 
his father's death Dickens's interest in him deepened, and 
Gadshill was Liberty Hall to him. He was, as he put it to 
me, a "sort of extra son." As he was growing up he stood, 
in a sense, between the novelist's eldest and younger sons. 
Charles was only three years older than he, but he married 
and left home very young ; the other boys were younger than 
he. We know what a difference a couple of years will make 
between boys in their teens ; but apart from that, Marcus 
Stone was older than his years. He was exhibiting at the 
Royal Academy when he was but seventeen ; he was only nine- 
teen when his father died, and he was called upon to battle 
with the world. Thus, though so young, he was a real com- 
panion to the novelist. He had the freedom of Gadshill: 
that is to say, he was told that he could come whenever he 
liked and stay just as long as he liked. He did not avail 
himself of the privilege so often as he would have wished, 
because he so early achieved success in his profession and 



176 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

was a very busy man, "but," he told me, "I spent, I should 
think, quite a month in his house every year, and I was 
always there at Christmas for about a fortnight. I saw 
him as nobody else saw him. I was, so to speak, nobody in 
the house. I came and went as I listed, and I saw the man 
himself. However intimate one may be with a guest, you 
know, there is inevitably some degree of self-consciousness. 
I was a nobody — that is, just a young man that did not count 
as a guest at all. I was one of the family. Thus I saw 
Charles Dickens as nobody else saw him. I saw him living his 
own, everyday, actual life, and as an observant boy, and as 
a mature man, I saw him. I used to take any work I could 
carry with me, and do it at Gadshill. I just 'walked in,' and 
was as much at home as one of his sons." 

"What sort of man was Dickens?" I asked the famous 
artist, and I am not likely to forget the fervent earnestness 
with which he answered me. 

"He was quite the best man I ever knew. Yes" — 
and he gripped my arm and looked me earnestly in the 
eyes — "the best man I ever knew. He was such a good 
man that you put your greatness in the second place 
when you knew him. He occupied himself daily in some 
sort of work for somebody. The amount of work that 
he did, the amount of money that he took out of his 
pocket, was perfectly amazing. But the personal trouble 
that he took for people who had no sort of claim upon 
him ! He was the most compassionate creature that ever 
lived — in fact, almost to a ludicrous extent at times. 
He forgave when he ought not to have done so, and gave 
very often where he ought to have withheld." 

I realised then the truth of what he said to the Boz Club: 
"The very mention of the name of Charles Dickens is always 
followed in my case with a certain thrill of inward emotion." 
If ever one man loved another, Marcus Stone loved Charles 
Dickens. He asserts — and none need doubt that it is true — 
that Dickens was the chief formative influence in his life. 

In the "Gad's Hill Gazette," that entertaining little jour- 
nal printed and published by the novelist's boys, Marcus 
Stone's name occurs frequently. There are several references 



FRANK STONE AND HIS SON 177 

to his skill at billiards — which remained with him until recent 
years, when his sight failed. "Only one game worthy of men- 
tion has been played during the last week," we read in one 
place. "This was a game between Messrs. M. Stone and C. 
Dickens, junr. (chiefly remarkable for the large scores made 
by the former). Mr. Stone began the game by giving his 
opponent a miss, which made a difficult score for the latter: 
he however scored 2. The game proceeded slowly till the 
marker called 24 (Mr. Stone) to 5. Then the Champion 
made a break of 51, followed by another of 24, winning the 
game by 91." In the number dated August 19, 1862, we 
read: "There has been little done at Gad's Hill during the 
past week, as the weather has been so unpropitious. In con- 
sequence of this, Billiards has been resorted to, in which Mr. 
M. Stone has beaten all opponents." Not always, however, 
did he triumph, as is shown by the following: "On Saturday 
evening last two very scientific games were played between 
M. Stone, Esqre. (the last week's champion), and C. Fechter, 
Esqre. The former was the favourite, but to the astonish- 
ment of all, he was beaten easily both games." 

Another interesting fact recorded in the "Gazette" is that 
"Mr. M. Stone has just completed a portrait in water-colours 
of Mrs. Charles Collins. 1 In the painting of this little work 
of Art there is a pose shown which is very creditable to the 
author, and the portrait also is very like." And in a Sup- 
plement it is recorded: "In an article at the bottom of 
Page 2, we omitted to mention that Mr. M. Stone has also 
painted a portrait (in water-colours) of Gad's Hill House." 

It is not necessary to do more here than recall the fact 
that Marcus Stone illustrated Our Mutual Friend. With 
the question, "Why did Dickens drop Phiz?" I have already 
dealt in my chapter on Phiz, but I may observe that Mr. 
Stone confirmed me in the conclusions at which I arrived 
there. There was no quarrel of any kind whatsoever, but 
Dickens felt that Phiz's work was no longer suitable. It had 
not advanced in character or quality since Pickwick, and 
Dickens decided to drop him after Little Dorrit. He had 
no successor in view, but between Little Dorrit and Our 
Mutual Friend Frank Stone died, and Dickens saw the op- 

1 Kate Dickens; now Mrs. Perugini. 



178 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

portunity of helping his friend's brilliant son, who was also 
his friend. "But," said Mr. Stone to me, "I want to be very 
clear on this point: regard for me or interest in me had 
absolutely nothing to do with the dropping of Browne. I 
had not entered his head when he decided to do that. The 
choice of me may have been actuated to some extent by per- 
sonal feelings; on that I cannot speak; but I know that he 
had never even thought of me when he decided to drop Phiz." 

It should also be recalled here that we are indebted to 
Marcus Stone for Mr. Venus. Dickens had written nearly 
three numbers of Our Mutual Friend," when, says Forster, 
"upon a necessary rearrangement of his chapters, he had to 
hit upon a new subject for one of them. 'While I was con- 
sidering what it should be, Marcus, who has done an excellent 
cover, came to tell me of an extraordinary trade he had 
found out through one of his painting requirements. I 
immediately went with him to St. Giles's, to look at the place, 
and found what you will see.' It was the establishment of 
Mr. Venus, preserver of animals and birds, and articulator 
of human bones." 

It is worthy of recording that the original drawings for 
Our Mutual Friend were subsequently sold for £QQ. Marcus 
Stone also did the following illustrations for other of 
Dickens's works : the frontispiece to the first Cheap Edition 
of Little Dorrit, 1861 ; eight illustrations for the Library 
Edition of Great Expectations, 1862 ; four for the Library 
Edition of Pictures from Italy, 1862 ; four for the Library 
Edition of American Notes, 1862; eight for the Library 
Edition of A Child's History of England, 1862; and the 
frontispiece for the first Cheap Edition of A Tale of Two 
Cities, 1864. 

Marcus Stone naturally had a part in the children's the- 
atricals. He also assisted in the "grown-up performances" 
at Tavistock House. In "The Lighthouse" he played the 
wind — off!; in "The Frozen Deep" he appeared on the 
stage, but had only one word to say. His recollection of 
those happy days has not dimmed with the passage of years. 
He often recalls with enjoyment how Thackeray rolled off his 
chair with laughing at the funniosities of one of the juvenile 
comedians. He also recalls hearing Lord Campbell remark 



FRANK STONE AND HIS SON 179 

that he would rather have written Pickwick than be Lord 
Chief Justice of England. 

In conclusion, it will not be out of place if I record one 
story that he told me. "I heard of Thackeray's death," he 
said, "from Charles Dickens. The news had not appeared in 
the morning papers. It was Christmas Eve, and I was going 
to Gadshill for the Christmas. I met another guest in the 
train — I forget who it was. Dickens was at the station to 
meet us. As soon as I saw him, I knew that something had 
cut him deeply. I went up to him, and said, 'What is it?' 
and he said, in a breaking voice, 'Thackeray is dead.' I 
said, 'I know you must feel it very deeply, because you and 
he were not on friendly terms.' He put his hand on my arm, 
and said, so earnestly, 'Thank God, my boy, we were !' And 
then he told me about the reconciliation at the Athenaeum 
Club. I know what a consolation it was to him to think of 
that meeting and reconciliation." 



CHAPTER XXIX 

SOME LIMBS OF THE LAW 

Surprising indeed would it have been if Dickens had not 
numbered among his friends some distinguished limbs of the 
law. None of our novelists knew lawyers and lawyers' clerks 
and lawyers' chambers better than he did. He laughed at 
them all, and he laughed still more loudly and very much 
more scornfully at the law, but lawyers as a class have a 
keener sense of humour than most other classes, and from 
the beginning Dickens was a great favourite with them. 
Curiously enough, all his legal friendships were formed early 
in his career. 

Sir Jonathan Pollock, who eventually became Chief Baron 
of the Exchequer, was one of these early friends. In his ca- 
pacity as judge he on several occasions won the novelist's 
admiration. Pollock was much older than Dickens, but there 
was a strong mutual regard. When Dickens died, the Baron 
described him as "one of the most distinguished and hon- 
oured men England has ever produced; in whose loss every 
man among us feels that he has lost a friend and instructor." 
With the son, Sir Frederick Pollock, there was also a pleas- 
ant friendship. They met first at Broadstairs in 1850, and 
Pollock's first impression of Dickens's delightful manner was 
confirmed by subsequent friendly intercourse. It is rather 
curious that Dickens should not have met the son much 
earlier, but once they knew each other they became on splen- 
did terms and saw much of each other. 

A great judge to whom Dombey and Son made a special 
appeal was Lord Denman — Lord Chief Justice of England. 
"Isn't Bunsby good?" he exclaimed across the table at Tal- 
fourd's house to a fellow-guest. But he had been attracted 
to Boz in the very beginning, and we have Miss Edgeworth's 
word for it that he studied Pickwick on the bench while the 
jury was deliberating. There was much friendly intercourse 

180 



SOME LIMBS OF THE LAW 181 

with this excellent man for whom Dickens had a peculiar 
regard, as is shown by the following, written in 1844: 

"Denman delights me. I am glad to think I have 
always liked him so well. I am sure that whenever he 
makes a mistake it is a mistake ; and that no man lives 
who has a grander and nobler scorn for every mean 
and dastard action. I would to Heaven it were decorous 
to pay him some public tribute of respect." 

There was an equally hearty friendship with Lord Camp- 
bell, the man who declared that he would rather have written 
Pickwick than be Chief Justice of England and a peer of 
Parliament. The occasion was a supper party that followed 
a performance of "The Lighthouse" in 1855, and Forster in 
recording it adds a note which is further proof of the great 
judge's liking for Dickens's books. "Sitting at Nisi Prius 
not long before," he says, "the Chief Justice, with the same 
out-of-the-way liking for letters, had committed what was 
called at the time a breach of judicial decorum. 'The name,' 
he said, 'of the illustrious Charles Dickens has been called 
on the jury, but he has not answered. If his great Chancery 
suit had been still going on I certainly would have excused 
him, but as that is over he might have done us the honour 
of attending here that he might have seen how we went on 
at Common Law.' " 

With Lord Brougham there was only a friendly acquaint- 
anceship. Dickens, of course, sympathised with Brougham's 
political opinions, and he found the lawyer a useful ally in 
the fight on the copyright question, but Brougham could 
never have made a very strong personal appeal to him. We 
read of Dickens receiving a letter from him in America in 
1842 (probably on that copyright question), and we read 
of a meeting in Paris four years later, but there is not the 
least evidence of any genial intercourse. With Lord Cock- 
burn, the friend of Jeffrey, there was a much greater friend- 
ship. 

Sergeant Ballantine was almost a lifelong friend. They 
met on January 10, 1838, and Dickens died on the very 
day that he would have been elected a member of the Union 
Club on Ballantine's recommendation, so that their friend- 



182 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

ship extended over a period of thirty-two years. Ballantine 
was a great admirer of Dickens himself and of his books: 

"I was very much attached to Charles Dickens ; there 
was a brightness and geniality about him that greatly 
fascinated his companions. His laugh was so cheery, 
and he seemed to enter into the feelings of those around 
him. He told a story well and never prosily ; he was a 
capital listener, and in conversation was not in the 
slightest degree dictatorial. . . . No man possessed 
more sincere friends or deserved them better." 

He records one amusing anecdote. Upon one occasion 
he started from Boulogne with Dickens and Dr. Elliotson. 
"Neither of my comrades was a good sailor, and they knew 
it themselves. The illustrious author armed himself with 
a box of homoeopathic globules ; and the doctor, whose figure 
was rotund, having a theory that by tightening the stomach 
the internal movements which caused the sickness might be 
prevented, waddled down to the boat with his body almost 
divided by a strap. The weather was stormy, and neither 
remedy proved of any avail." 

It is interesting to note, by the way, that Ballantine 
knew the originals of two of Dickens's characters very well. 
Of Mr. Laing, the original of Mr. Fang, the bullying 
magistrate in Oliver Twist, he says: "Notwithstanding an 
unfortunate temper, he was a thoroughly honourable gentle- 
man, a good lawyer, and an accomplished scholar, very 
precise in his dress, but very sour looking." And of Sir 
Peter Laurie, the original of Alderman Cute in The Chimes, 
he says he was "a shrewd, far-seeing Scotchman, quaint and 
conceited, but with plenty of sound good sense, and an 
honourable character." 



CHAPTER XXX 

GORE HOUSE FRIENDS 

"I had no means of knowing whether what the world said 
of this most beautiful woman was true or false, but I am 
sure God intended her to be good, and there was a deep- 
seated good intent in whatever she did that came under my 
observation. She never lost an opportunity of doing a 
gracious act, of saying a gracious word." 

This is what Mrs. S. C. Hall wrote of Lady Blessington. 
It is the tribute of a good woman to the memory of a 
much-maligned woman, and its justice need not be doubted. 
Indeed, it may be said of her that she deserved to be good. 
She had many true friends among the greatest men of her 
time, and they all paid their tributes to her memory when, 
her glory faded, she died in poverty in Paris. 

And as to D'Orsay, he certainly was "a rare sort of 
bird for our reticent land," but he was a remarkable man 
not at all deserving of unqualified condemnation. I sup- 
pose in our "moral" moods we condemn Micawber, but the 
"moral" mood is not the charitable mood, and both the 
Countess of Blessington and the Comte D'Orsay have very 
strong claims upon our charity when we are attempting to 
estimate their characters. Landor, Thackeray, Forster, 
Dickens, Carlyle, and many more men of the greatest ability 
and the highest character entertained for this pair feelings 
of the most earnest friendship. Miss Hogarth has told us 
that the Countess was "a lady for whom Chas. Dickens 
had a most affectionate friendship and respect for the sake 
of her own admirable qualities, and in remembrance of her 
delightful association with Gore House, where he was a 
frequent visitor. For Lady Blessington he had a high ad- 
miration and great regard, and she was one of his earliest 
appreciators ; and Comte D'Orsay was also a much-loved 
friend." 

183 



184 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

One story that is told of D'Orsay is as follows; A major 
was telling his tale of woe. He was hampered with debt, and 
had come to London to sell his commission in order to pay 
his creditors. "Lend me £10," said D'Orsay. The money 
was lent, and the next day the Count handed to the major 
£750, with "It is yours. I gambled with your £10 last 
night, and won this. It is yours most justly, for if I had 
lost I should never have paid you the £10." How could 
Dickens be on terms of affection with such a man? It is 
the obvious question, and the answer is equally obvious. 
There was — must have been — another side to D'Orsay's 
character. He lived grandly on nothing a year, but — let us 
quote H. F. Chorley : 

"There was every conceivable and inconceivable story 
current in London of the extravagance of the 'King 
of the French'; but it was never told that he had been 
cradled, as it were, in ignorance of the value of money, 
such as those will not believe possible who have been 
less indulged and less spoiled, and who have been less 
pleasing to indulge and to spoil than he was. . . . He 
was spoiled during most of his life by every one whom 
he came near. ... It was a curious sight to see, as 
I often did in the early days of our acquaintance, how 
he seemed to take it for granted that everybody had 
any conceivable quantity of five-pound notes. . . . 
Never was Sybarite so little selfish as he. He loved 
extravagance — waste even. He would give half a 
sovereign to a box-keeper at a theatre as a matter 
of course and not ostentation ; but he could also bestow 
time, pains, money, with a magnificence and a delicacy 
such as showed what a real princely stuff there was in 
the nature of the man whom Fortune had so cruelly 
spoiled. He had 'the memory of the heart' in per- 
fection." 

All the men who knew him bear the same testimony. Such 
a man as Macready fell under the spell: "No one who 
knew him and had affections could help loving him. . . . 
He was the most brilliant, graceful, endearing man I ever 
saw — humorous, witty, and clear-headed." Indeed, the 



GORE HOUSE FRIENDS 185 

truth is that, nurtured in a more self-reliant school, D'Orsay 
might have been a great and good man. And Dickens, with 
that perception which never failed him, saw the solid quali- 
ties beneath the somewhat fantastic exterior, and loved the 
man for them. 

In an article in Household Words in 1853 D'Orsay was 
written of as one "whose name is publicly synonymous with 
elegant and graceful accomplishment, and who, by those 
who knew him well, is affectionately remembered and re- 
gretted, as a man whose great abilities might have raised 
him to any distinction, and whose gentle heart even a world 
of fashion left unspoiled." This was not written by Dickens 
himself, but it passed his editorial scrutiny, and undoubt- 
edly exactly expressed his feelings. 

It has been stated, I know not on what authority, that 
Dickens met Lady Blessington — and presumably D'Orsay 
also — in 1841. I am inclined to doubt the accuracy of 
this. Forster had been a friend at Gore House since 1836, 
from which year his intimacy with Dickens also dated. It 
would seem extraordinary that he should so long have de- 
layed introducing his brilliant young friend of whom he was 
so proud to the famous salon. Anyhow, whenever the in- 
troduction took place, certain it is that Dickens became 
a very close friend and one of the most frequent and welcome 
visitors at Gore House, which was then at the summit of 
its glory. The wonders of this salon have been described 
by many writers. Lady Bfessington held her court in the 
library, "a magnificent apartment, lined with books, the 
edges of the shelves enamelled in ivory, and mirrors being 
dotted about. The fireplace was of beautifully carved 
marble, and in the centre were columns supporting an arch. 
Curtains of silk damask, and a delicate apple-green shade; 
the same material, set in white and gold, being seen in the 
chairs and lounges." 

Here they met frequently, all the brilliant men of a 
brilliant period — Landor and Disraeli, Dickens and Carlyle, 
Forster and Maclise, Bulwer and Ainsworth, Macready and 
Marry at, and Barry Cornwall — men differing in tempera- 
ment as one star differeth from another in glory ; all united 
in paying homage to this remarkable woman. Dickens fell 
under the spell at once, and Forster tells us what warmth 



186 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

of regard he had for her, and how uninterruptedly joyous 
and pleasurable were his associations with her. 

In 1844 she was able to be of real service to him. On 
March 10 he wrote to her: 

"I have made up my mind to 'see the world,' and 
mean to decamp, bag and baggage, next midsummer 
for a twelve-month. I purpose establishing my family 
in some convenient place, from whence I can make per- 
sonal ravages on the neighbouring country, and, some- 
how or other, have got it into my head that Nice would 
be a favourable spot for headquarters. You are so 
well acquainted with these matters that I am anxious 
to have the benefit of your kind advice. I do not 
doubt that you can tell me whether this same Nice be 
a healthy place the year through, whether it be reason- 
ably cheap, pleasant to look at and to live in, and the 
like. If you will tell me when you have ten minutes to 
spare for such a client, I shall be delighted to come 
to you, and guide myself by your opinion. I will not 
ask you to forgive me for troubling you, because I am 
sure beforehand that you will do so. . . ." 

She gave him the advice asked for, and D'Orsay supple- 
mented it: "Pray say to Count D'Orsay everything that 
is cordial and loving from me. The travelling purse he gave 
me has been of immense service. It has been constantly 
opened. All Italy seems to yearn to put its hand into it." 
Every one of the few letters of Dickens to Lady Blessington 
that have been preserved bears testimony to the regard in 
which he held her. For instance, writing from Milan, in 
November 1844, he says: "Appearances are against me. 
Don't believe them. I have written you in intention fifty 
letters, and I can claim no credit for one of them (though 
they were the best letters you ever received) for they all 
originated in my desire to live in your memory and regard." 
And in 1847 he wrote from Paris: "I feel very wicked in 
beginning this note, and deeply remorseful for not having 
begun and ended it long ago. But you know how difficult 
it is to write letters in the midst of a writing life; and as 
you know, too (I hope), how earnestly and affectionately 
I always think of you, wherever I am, I take heart, on a, 



GORE HOUSE FRIENDS 187 

little consideration, and feel comparatively good again." 
In December 1844, when he made a hurried visit to England 
in order to read The Chimes at Forster's house, he found 
time to visit Lady Blessington, and on the day of his de- 
parture he wrote to her: 

"Business for other people (and by no means of a 
pleasant kind) has held me prisoner during two whole 
days, and will so detain me to-day, in the very agony 
of my departure for Italy, that I shall not even be able 
to reach Gore House once more, on which I had set 
my heart. I cannot bear the thought of going away 
without some sort of reference to the happy day you 
gave me on Monda} T , and the pleasure and delight I 
had in your earnest greeting. I shall never forget it, 
believe me. ... It will be an unspeakable satisfaction 
(though I am not maliciously disposed) to know under 
your own hand at Genoa that my little book made you 
cry. I hope to prove a better correspondent on my 
return to those shores. But, better or worse, or any- 
how, I am ever, my dear Lady Blessington, in no 
common degree, and not with an everyday regard, 
yours." 

When the "Daily News" was started in 1846, Lady 
Blessington was asked if she would supply the paper with 
"any sort of intelligence she might like to communicate of 
the sayings, doings, or movements in the fashionable world." 
She agreed, but asked £800 a year. This was considered 
too high a figure, and she was offered £400 a year, or £250 
for six months, another agreement to be made at the ex- 
piration of that period if satisfactory to both parties. 
This latter offer was accepted, but at the end of the six 
months the Editor (John Forster) declined to renew the 
agreement. 

It should be added here that Dickens was a contributor 
to "The Keepsake," which was edited by Lady Blessington. 
His contribution in 1843 was the verses entitled A Word 
in Season, 

The novelist's regard for D'Orsay is shown by many 
references in his letters, but the best evidence is the fact 
that he named one of his sons after him. The late Mr. 



188 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Alfred Tennyson Dickens was not named, as one might 
naturally conclude, exclusively after the poet laureate, 
"Alfred" being in compliment to the Count. It is inter- 
esting to note, also, that Dickens was influenced in some 
degree by D'Orsay's judgment to publish Pictures from 
Italy. These Pictures were practically a reprint of the 
letters he had addressed to Forster. Referring to them 
in a subsequent letter to that friend, he says : "Seriously, 
it is a great pleasure to me to find that you are really 
pleased with these shadows in the water, and think them 
worth looking at. . . . D'Orsay, from whom I had a charm- 
ing letter three days since, seems to think as you do of 
what he has read in those shown to him, and says they 
remind him vividly of the real aspect of these scenes." 

The glory of Gore House was but transient, and its sun 
set for ever in 1849. It had begun to sink behind the clouds 
two years before. Owing to the famine and distress in 
Ireland, Lady Blessington's income fell off, and her income 
from books diminished too. Eventually the house had to 
be shut against creditors and the sheriff's officer. At last, 
however, an entry was obtained. She was offered assistance 
by many friends, but she refused, and placed Gore House 
in the hands of an auctioneer, she and D'Orsay leaving 
England never to return. Gore House then became a scene 
of desolation. 

Lady Blessington died but a few weeks after her arrival 
in Paris. D'Orsay lived on until 1852, and he dined with 
Dickens in the French capital in 1850. 

The memories of these two friends, and of the happy days 
at Gore House, never left Dickens, and we find a reference 
to them in a letter he wrote to Landor in 1856, from 
Boulogne : 

"There in Paris ... I found Marguerite Power and 
little Nelly, living with their mother and a pretty sister 
in a very small and neat apartment, and working (as 
Marguerite told me) hard for a living. All that I 
saw of them filled me with respect, and revived the 
tenderest remembrances of Gore House. They are com- 
ing to pass two or three weeks here for a country rest, 
next month. We had many long talks concerning Gore 
House and all its bright associations." 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE HON. MRS. NORTON 

In these aays Dickens was acquainted with another bril- 
liant woman, as unhappy as Lady Blessington — the Hon. 
Mrs. Norton. Indeed, they were very friendly. Speaking 
of a dinner at Devonshire Terrace in April 1849, Forster 
says that among the guests was "Lady Graham, wife of Sir 
James Graham, and sister of Tom Sheridan's wife, than 
whom not even the wit and beauty of her nieces, Mrs. 
Norton and Lady Dufferin, did greater justice to the bril- 
liant family of the Sheridans ; so many of whose members, 
and these three above all, Dickens prized among his friends." 
But there is positively no record of the friendship. This 
is Forster's only reference to it, and Mrs. Norton's biog- 
rapher's only mention of Dickens is in connection with the 
performances at the St. James's Theatre in 1845. "We 
find," she says, "the Duff Gordons and Henry Reeve and 
Mrs. Norton all in a box together with Lord Melbourne at 
St. James's Theatre in November of that same year to 
see the first representation of 'Every Man in His Humour,' 
acted by some of the writers for 'Punch' and other literary 
men of the time, notably Charles Dickens. We are told 
that Lord Melbourne found the play very poor. . . till 
suddenly between the acts he exclaimed in a stentorian 
voice, heard across the pit, 'I knew this play would be dull, 
but that it would be so damnably dull as this I didn't sup- 
pose.' ' Miss Perkins makes one mistake. The first per- 
formance of the comedy had taken place two months previ- 
ously at the Royalty Theatre. 

Mention of Lord Melbourne recalls an interesting fact. 
All the world knows of the famous trial in which that peer 
was acquitted of misconduct with Mrs. Norton. Mr. Percy 
Fitzgerald makes the suggestion that Dickons obtained from 

189 



190 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

it the idea for the Pickwick trial. He states, indeed, that 
the novelist parodied many of the incidents, and that Buz- 
fuz's cross-examination was a reproduction. Referring to 
the great play made by Buzfuz with the two letters that 
had passed between Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell, he says: 

"They were intended to satirise the trivial scraps 
brought forward in Mrs. Norton's matrimonial case — 
Norton v. Lord Melbourne. My late friend, Charles 
Dickens the younger, ... in his notes on Pickwick, 
puts aside this theory as a mere unfounded theory ; but 
it will be seen there cannot be a doubt in the matter. 
Sir W. Follett laid just as much stress on these scraps 
as Sergeant Buzfuz did on his : he even used the phrase 
'it seems there may be latent love like latent heat in 
these productions.' We have also 'Yours, Melbourne,' 
like 'Yours, Pickwick.' . . . 'There is another of these 
notes,' went on Sir William. ' "How are you?" Again 
there is no beginning, you see.' 'The next has no date 
whatever, which is in itself suspicious,' Buzfuz would 
have added. Another ran: 'I will call about half-past 
four. Yours.' 'These are the only notes that have 
been found,' added the counsel, with due gravity. 
'They seem to import much more than mere words 
convey.' After this can there be any doubt?" 

Well, speaking for myself, I should think not. It seems 
to me that Mr. Fitzgerald has made out an unanswerable 
case. Listen to this for a moment : 

"Two letters have passed between these parties. 
Letters that must be viewed with a cautious and suspi- 
cious eye; letters that were evidently intended at the 
time, by Lord Melbourne, to mislead and delude any 
third parties into whose hands they might fall. Let 
me read the first: 'How are you?' There is no be- 
ginning, you see. 'How are you!!' Gentlemen, is the 
happiness of a sensitive and confiding husband to be 
trifled away by such shallow artifices as these? The 
next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious : 
'I will call about half-past four. Yours.' It seems 



THE HON. MRS. NORTON 191 

that there may be latent love like latent heat; these 
productions may be mere covers for hidden fire, mere 
substitutes for some endearing word or promise, agree- 
ably to a preconcerted system of correspondence art- 
fully contrived by Lord Melbourne, and which I confess 
I am not in a position to explain." 

Now the trial took place in June 1836. Pickwick had 
started a couple of months before. All the world was talk- 
ing about the Norton v. Melbourne trial. Mrs. Norton's 
biographer says : "There had been great talk beforehand 
of compromising letters by Lord Melbourne, which were to 
be produced in evidence against him, but on the day of 
the trial all that appeared were several little notes of the 
utmost brevity and unimportance." All the world had an- 
ticipated this correspondence which was going to be so 
incriminating; the trial was the sensation of the day; yet 
those trifling notes were the tiny mouse that the mountain 
of gossip and scandal brought forth of its labour! 

Think of Boz, with his experience of the law, with his 
experience as a journalist; think of him full of enthusiasm 
over his first commission ; think of him with a roving com- 
mission to take the Pickwickians where he liked and to do 
what he liked with them ; think of him with all his keenness, 
with all his powers of observation, with his sense of the 
ridiculous, on the alert for material. Then think of this 
trial, the sensation of the hour just when his mind was full- 
est of Pickwick. And then read Sergeant Buzfuz's address 
in conjunction with Sir William Follett's address. Was 
ever anything clearer? 

If for this reason only, Mrs. Norton is worthy of the 
place she has been given here. But she was unquestionably 
on friendly terms with Dickens, who had a great admiration 
for her gifts. And, it should be added, she contributed once 
or twice to Household Words, 



CHAPTER XXXII 

MISS COUTTS 

There is another lady whose place is here, one of the 
most honoured friends that Dickens ever had, one at whose 
hands he received innumerable kindnesses, one of the noblest 
women that this country has ever produced. I mean Miss 
Coutts, known to a later generation as the Baroness Burdett- 
Coutts, the sweet and gracious woman whose lifelong devo- 
tion to the doing of good deeds won for her a final resting- 
place in the grand old Abbey, close to the friend to whom 
she was so kind, and who rendered her, through so many 
years, such devoted help in her efforts to make the world 
a happier place. 

Forsters' earliest mention of her relates to the year 1840, 
when, after naming a number of specially liked friends, he 
says: "Other friends became familiar in later years; but, 
disinclined as he was to the dinner invitations that reached 
him from every quarter, all such meetings with those I have 
named, and in an especial manner the marked attentions 
shown him by Miss Coutts, which began with the very be- 
ginning of his career, were invariably welcome." So that 
the novelist had known Miss Coutts from his earliest days 
of fame. He had known her father, too. Sir Francis 
Burdett had been attracted by the onslaughts on the Poor- 
law in Oliver Twist, and in a speech at Birmingham referred 
to the young writer, and spoke approvingly of his advocacy 
of the cause of the poor. 

Miss Coutts seems to have taken a particular liking to 
the novelist's eldest boy. For many years she sent him on 
his birthday, which happened to be Twelfth Day, a Twelfth 
Cake, and there is an amusing reference to one of these 
confections in a letter written to Forster from Genoa in 
1845: "Miss Coutts has sent Charley, with the best of 
letters to me, a Twelfth Cake weighing ninety pounds, 

192 



MISS COUTTS 193 

magnificently decorated; and only think of the characters, 
Fairburn's Twelfth Night characters, being detained at the 
custom-house for Jesuitical surveillance ! But these fellows 

are Well, never mind!" In 1846 she offered to take 

charge of Charley's education. The offer was accepted, and 
the boy went to King's College. Forster says : "Munificent 
as the kindness was, however, it was yet only the smallest 
part of the obligation which Dickens felt that he owed this 
lady." 

In 1856 she did the novelist a kind service in respect of 
another son, obtaining for Walter a cadetship in the 26th 
Native (India) Infantry Regiment. It is not surprising 
that Dickens held this kind friend in the highest regard, 
and entertained the deepest respect for her. "She is a good 
creature, I protest to God," he wrote on one occasion, "and 
I have a most profound affection and respect for her." 
And he bore public testimony to the fact in 1844, when he 
dedicated Martin Chuzzlewit to her "with the true and 
earnest regard of the author." More than that, he re- 
ciprocated her kindness all that lay in his power by render- 
ing, through many years, "unstinted service of time and 
labour, with sacrifices unselfish as her own," to all her 
schemes for the benefit of the neglected and uncared-for 
classes of the population. 

His knowledge of the poor and their needs, his earnest 
desire to see those needs supplied, and his sane, common- 
sense, business-like character made him invaluable to her in 
her work, and until the end of his life he was her most trusted 
confidant and adviser in almost every one of her schemes. 
Indeed, it was he who first showed her the way. It was he 
who introduced her to the slums of London, taking her into 
the wretchedest parts of the metropolis, and it was a direct 
result of those visits to the East End that she blotted out 
one of the worst plague spots of all — Nova Scotia Gardens, 
Bethnal Green — and erected the Columbia Square Buildings, 
the first model dwellings in London. It was he, too, who 
secured her interest for the Ragged Schools. "I sent Miss 
Coutts a sledge-hammer account of the ragged-schools," he 
wrote to Forster in September 1843, "and as I saw her 
name for two hundred pounds in the Clergy Education sub- 
scription list, took pains to show her that religious mysteries 



194 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

and difficult creeds wouldn't do for such pupils. I told her, 
too, that it was of immense importance they should be 
washed. She writes back to know what the rent of some 
large airy premises would be, and what the expense of erect- 
ing a regular bathing or purifying place; touching which 
points I am in correspondence with the authorities. I have 
no doubt she will do whatever I ask her in the matter." 

Again, in the establishment of the home for fallen women 
at Shepherd's Bush, Dickens was Miss Coutts's right hand. 
He took up the work with enthusiasm, and wrote an appeal 
to those women which was printed as a pamphlet and given 
away in the streets. (Has no collector ever yet lighted on a 
copy of that appeal?) Indeed, the whole of the work was 
carried through by him, acting for Miss Coutts, and Forster 
declares that it largely and regularly occupied his time for 
several years. 

Of social intercourse we do not read, but we do know 
that Dickens was a frequent guest at Miss Coutts's house, 
and we know that one of the things that delighted Hans 
Andersen most of all during his second visit to England 
was his introduction by Dickens to that house and its noble 
owner. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE GOOD EARL 



With that other great philanthropist of the time, the 
"good Earl of Shaftesbury," Dickens was also well ac- 
quainted, though perhaps he can scarcely be described as 
a member of the Dickens circle. That the greatest and 
most single-hearted social reformer of his or any other 
generation and the author of Oliver Twist and Nicholas 
Nickleby should come into personal contact was inevitable. 
But it was equally inevitable that there should be no com- 
radeship, if I may so put it. The good Earl, we are told, 
had no sense of humour, never made a joke or saw the point 
of one. It is a difficult thing to believe of a man who so 
loved his fellows, but all the same it is not difficult to con- 
ceive of him as capable of reading Pickwick without a 
chuckle. Besides, his whole life was guided by a decidedly 
narrow set of Christian ethics, and Dickens's Christianity 
was of the broadest possible kind — so broad, indeed, that 
Lord Shaftesbury seems not to have been quite convinced 
of its reality. For in 1871 we find him noting in his Diary: 
"Forster has sent me his Life of Dickens. The man was a 
phenomenon, an exception, a special production. Nothing 
like him ever preceded. Nature isn't so tautological as to 
make another to follow him. He was set, I doubt not, to 
rouse attention to many evils, and many woes ; and though 
not putting it on Christian principles (which would have 
rendered it unacceptable), he may have been in God's singu- 
lar and unfathomable goodness as much a servant of the 
Most High as the pagan Naaman 'by whom the Lord have 
given deliverance to Syria'! God gave him, as I wrote to 
Forster, a general retainer against all suffering and op- 
pression." 

Now that, it seems to me, reveals a mind with which 
Dickens could never have been absolutely at home. But he 

195 



196 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

honoured the Earl as truly as any one did. The latter's 
biographer, Mr. Edwin Hodder, records : "Charles Dickens 
was always a warm admirer, and on several occasions aided 
materially some of his great labours for the poor." Mr. 
Hodder adds that in 1838 the novelist became an ally on 
the factory question, and he quotes a letter written to Mr. 
Edward Fitzgerald on December 29 in that year, in the 
course of which Dickens said: 

"I went some weeks ago to Manchester, and saw the 
worst cotton mill. And then I saw the best. Ex uno 
disce omnes. There was no great difference between 
them. . . . On the eleventh of next month I am going 
down again only for three days, and then into the 
enemy's camp and the very headquarters of the Factory 
System advocates. I fear I shall have very little op- 
portunity of looking about me, but I should be most 
happy to avail myself of any introduction from Lord 
Ashley which in the course of an hour or so would 
enable me to make any fresh observations. 

"With that nobleman's most benevolent and excellent 
exertions, and with the evidence which he was the means 
of bringing forward, I am well acquainted. So far as 
seeing goes, I have seen enough for my purpose, and 
what I have seen has disgusted and astonished me be- 
yond all measure. I mean to strike the heaviest blow 
in my power for these unfortunate creatures, but 
whether I shall do so in Nickleby or wait some other 
opportunity, I have not yet determined." 

He did not strike the blow for some years — not, indeed, 
for sixteen years. For it was not until 1854 that he tackled 
the factory question in Hard Times. As all the world 
knows, that book was written largely under Carlylean in- 
fluence, but it is worth remembering that it was Lord 
Shaftesbury's activities that first roused Dickens, and that 
when at last he dealt with the question he selected (as he 
had proposed to do years before) Manchester for the back- 
ground of the story. 

When the foregoing letter was written Dickens had not 
met Lord Ashley (as he then was), and another ten years 



THE GOOD EARL 197 

passed before they became personally acquainted. But that 
his admiration for the man and his work became unlessened 
is shown by a letter written to Forster in 1841, in which 
he wrote that Samuel Rogers was much pleased with Lord 
Ashley for refusing a place in Peel's Government unless 
Peel would pledge himself to factory improvement, and 
added, "Much do I honour him for it." In 1851 he spoke 
at the dinner of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association, 
and proposed the toast of the Board of Health. He con- 
cluded his speech: "With the toast of the Board of Health 
I will couple the name of a noble lord, of whose earnestness 
in works of benevolence no man can doubt, and who has the 
courage on all occasions to face the cant which is the worst 
and commonest of all — the cant about the cant of philan- 
thropy." 

Forster records that "Lord Shaftesbury first dined with 
him in the following year at Tavistock House." They re- 
mained friends after that, but their association was never 
one of personal intimacy. Dickens admired Lord Shaftes- 
bury, and the Earl found in him a man earnest in all good 
works, ready at all times to assist by pen and voice any 
cause for the moral or physical uplifting of his fellow- 
creatures. And how Dickens did assist it is unnecessary 
to point out. In Household Words, in All the Year Round, 
he again and again supported the reforms that Lord 
Shaftesbury advocated. As, for instance, his articles on the 
Ragged Schools. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



Among authors, artists, actors, and lawyers Dickens 
formed many intimate friendships. There was one class, 
however, that scarcely found any place at all in his circle. 
I mean the politicians. He had a poor opinion of them as 
a class. Forster tells us that his observations while a re- 
porter in the Press Gallery at the House of Commons had 
not led him to form any high opinion of the House or its 
heroes. In his letters he often speaks contemptuously of 
our legislators, and there are many similarly contemptuous 
references to them in his books, and in his articles for 
Household Words and All the Year Round. I fear that 
Dickens lent himself a little too readily to this sort of non- 
constructive criticism. That is an aside, however. There 
is the fact: Dickens had a contempt for our Parliament and 
its heroes, and politicians do not cut any considerable figure 
in the Dickens circle in consequence. 

There were exceptions, of course. There, was Lytton, for 
instance, but his political activities were an accident, so to 
speak. He came into the circle as a brother author, and 
in that respect only have we to consider him in his relations 
with Dickens. Sir Austen La} r ard was a member of Parlia- 
ment, too, but not until after he had entered the Dickens 
circle, and his political activities were a sort of regrettable 
lapse from good tase in his friend's sight. Lord Shaftes- 
bury was a politician, too, but he was one of the exceptional 
legislators who saw in their membership of Parliament but 
enhanced opportunities of doing good. Disraeli he knew 
quite well in the Gore House days, but never liked him and 
never had much to do with him. It is impossible to imagine 
Dickens on terms of friendship with so cynical an oppor- 
tunist, and one is not the least bit surprised to find the 
novelist writing of "the Disraelis, Richmonds, and the other 

198 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 199 

Impostors and Humbugs." With Gladstone there was but 
the merest acquaintance. 

But there was one prominent politician for whom Dickens 
had profound respect and great personal liking. This was 
Lord John Russell. Apart, for the moment, from their 
personal friendship, Lord John in his public capacity was 
regarded by Dickens with an esteem that he entertained for 
no other statesman or politician of his time. In 1852 
Dickens wrote to Foster: "Lord John's note confirms me 
in an old impression that he is worth a score of official 
men ; and has more generosity in his little finger than a 
Government usually has in its whole Corporation." Five 
years later, speaking at the annual dinner of the Ware- 
housemen and Clerks' Schools, he proposed the health of 
Lord John, the President, and said: 

"He should do nothing so superfluous and so un- 
necessary as to descant upon his lordship's many 
faithful, long, and great public services, upon the 
honour and integrity with which he had pursued his 
straightforward public course through every difficulty, 
or upon the manly, gallant, and courageous character, 
which rendered him certain, in the eyes alike of friends 
and opponents, to rise with every rising occasion, and 
which, like the seal of Solomon, in the old Arabian 
story, enclosed in a not very large casket the soul of 
a giant." 

And at the Liverpool banquet in 1869 he said: ". . . 
There is no man in England whom I more respect in his 
public capacity, whom I love more in h ; s private capacity, 
or from whom I have received more remarkable proofs of 
his honour and love of literature." 

Lord John had piloted the great Reform Bill through the 
House of Commons in Dickens's twentieth year, and the 
future novelist had sat in the press gallery recording the 
historic debates. He had not dreamed then that some day 
he would be on terms of intimacy with the little man who 
was fighting the People's battle so staunchly, but, Radical 
that he already was, he had recognised in Lord John the 
true champion of Progress, and had formed an admiration 



200 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

for him that lasted till the end of his life. Two years later 
he had reported the passage of the Poor Law Reform Bill 
in which again Lord John had taken an active part. 

I imagine that there was scarcely a principle in regard 
to which Dickens was not in agreement with Lord John 
Russell. England never had a more consistent champion 
of civil and religious liberty than Lord John; there never 
was a more tolerant man than Dickens. Lord John helped 
to reform our Poor Laws ; Dickens did even more than the 
statesman in that direction. Lord John was a life-long ad- 
vocate of educational reform; there was no subject which 
Dickens had closer to his heart. But there was another 
important characteristic that earned Dickens's esteem. In 
that same Liverpool speech from which I have already 
quoted Dickens said: 

"When I first took literature as my profession in 
England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether 
I succeeded or whether I failed, literature should be 
my sole profession. It appeared to me at that time 
that it was not so well understood in England as it 
was in other countries that literature was a dignified 
profession by which any man might stand or fall. I 
made a compact with myself that in my person litera- 
ture should stand by itself, of itself, and for itself, and 
there is no consideration on earth that would induce 
me to break that bargain." 

Now, no Prime Minister has ever done more to encourage 
letters and the arts than Lord John Russell. Dickens ac- 
knowledged his "honour and love of literature" in that same 
Liverpool speech. He was ever ready to encourage letters 
by all means in his power. He was an author of distinction 
himself and a friend of authors, and no appeal on behalf 
of letters was ever made to him in vain. It was the grant- 
ing by him of a Civil List pension to Leigh Hunt in 1847 
that altered the plan of the theatricals organised by Dickens 
for that author's benefit. The purpose had hardly been 
announced, says Forster, "when, with a statesman-like atten- 
tion to literature and its followers for which Lord John 
Russell has been eccentric among English politicians, a Civil 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 201 

List pension of two hundred pounds a year was granted to 
Leigh Hunt." 

The plan was modified in consequence, and the proceeds 
of the performances were devoted, after a certain sum had 
been set aside for the purpose of clearing Hunt of debt, to 
the benefit of the author of "Paul Pry"— John Poole. The 
latter was never a friend of Dickens's in any real sense, but 
he was a brilliant playwright who had fallen on hard times, 
and with that ever-glowing sympathy of his the novelist 
helped him all he could. Three years after these perform- 
ances, when the money raised thereby was exhausted, he 
appealed to Lord John Russell to help. Lord John asked 
for full information, and this is what Dickens wrote in 
reply : 

"Allow me to thank you for your ready and kind 
reply to my note, and to put you in possession of the 
exact state of Mr. Poole's case. . . . For some years 
past he has been living in a fifth storey in a house in 
the Rue Neuve Luxembourg in Paris (on the proceeds 
of an amateur theatrical performance for his benefit 
of which I undertook the management and stewardship, 
and which I dispensed to him half-yearly) ; and such is 
the nervous affection of his hands particularly that 
when I have seen him there trembling and staggering 
over a small wood fire it has been a marvel to me, 
knowing him to live quite alone, how he ever got into 
or out of his clothes. To the best of my belief, he has 
no relations whomsoever. He must either have starved 
or gone to the workhouse (and I have little doubt that 
he would have done the former) but for the funds I 
have doled out to him which were exhausted before 
you generously assisted him from the Queen's Bounty. 
He has no resources of any kind — of that I am per- 
fectly sure. In the sunny time of the day he puts a 
melancholy little hat on one side of his head, and with 
a little stick under his arm, goes hitching himself 
about the boulevards; but for any power he has of 
earning a livelihood he might as well be dead. For 
three years I have been in constant expectation of re- 
ceiving a letter from the portress of the house to say 



202 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

that his ashes and those of his wood fire, both of a 
very shrunken description, had been found lying to- 
gether on the hearth. But he has lived on ;* and for a 
few hours every day has so concealed his real condition 
out of doors that many French authors and actors 
. . . would stand amazed to know what I now tell you. 
... I don't think he would hold a pension very long. 
I need not add that he sorely needs it — and I do not 
doubt that the public are well acquainted with his name 
and works." 

That letter was dated December 18: the response was 
prompt, for on Christmas Eve Dickens wrote to Lord John : 

"I have conveyed to Mr. Poole by to-night's post the 
joyful intelligence of her Majesty's gracious approval 
of your generous suggestion in his favour; and I do 
not doubt that he will endeavour to express to you 
(over that brighter fire) some of the happiness he owes 
to you." 

Three years later we find him writing to Lord John from 
Boulogne : 

"You will be interested, I think, to hear that Poole 
lives happily on his pension, and lives within it. He 
is quite incapable of any mental exertion, and what 
he would have done without it I cannot imagine. I 
send it to him at Paris every quarter. It is some- 
thing, even amid the estimation in which you are held, 
which is but a foreshadowing of what shall be by-and- 
by, as the people advance, to be so gratefully remem- 
bered as he, with the best reason, remembers you. 
Forgive my saying this. But the manner of that trans- 
action, no less than the matter, is always fresh in my 
memory in association with your name, and I could not 
help it." 

I have referred at length to this incident — reflecting, as 
it does, so much credit upon both Dickens and Lord John — 

1 He lived on until 1872. 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 203 

because it is so admirable an example of not only the states- 
man's goodness of heart, but his ever-glowing sympathy 
with letters which drew Dickens to him so strongly. 

Lord John Russell had an association — very indirect, but 
none the less real — with Dickens's first success, Pickwick. 
The Bath scenes in that book are among the very best. 
They reveal an astonishingly intimate knowledge of the city 
and its people. That knowledge was gained during a flying 
visit paid in 1835, a visit of which Lord John was the direct 
cause. He made a tour of the West of England in that 
year, speaking at all the important towns; and young 
Dickens followed him round reporting his speeches for the 
"Morning Chronicle." His reference to that tour at the 
Press Fund dinner thirty years later all the world knows. 

Lord John proceeded from Exeter to Bristol, where he 
spoke at a dinner, and the next day to Bath, Dickens fol- 
lowing in his train. So that, but for Lord John Russell, 
we should never have known Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esq., 
M.C., or the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph, or Mr. John 
Smauker; we should not have been introduced to the "elite 
of Ba-ath" ; but for him we should never have visited the 
surgery of "Sawyer, late Nockemorf," at Bristol, or tramped 
with Sam Weller across the breezy Downs and witnessed 
the folding of the carpet. 

How Dickens and Lord John became personally ac- 
quainted I do not know, but they were on very friendly 
terms in Dickens's very early days of authorship. They did 
not meet very frequently in social life, because, of course, 
Lord John was absorbed in public affairs alwa}^, but we 
have the authority of Dickens's daughter and sister-in-law 
for it that the statesman was "a friend whom he held in 
the highest estimation and to whom he was always grateful 
for many personal kindnesses." Several of his letters con- 
firm this, being expressions of gratitude for personal kind- 
nesses, the nature of which is not indicated. And if further 
evidence of his regard for this friend were needed we have 
it in the fact that A Tale of Two Cities was dedicated to 
him. 

The friendship continued till Dickens's death. So late 

as June 1869 we find Lord John writing: "I expect Dickens 

; to visit us. We went to see him last night in the murder 



204 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

of Nancy by Sikes, and Mrs. Gamp." Some years after 
the novelist's death, he wrote to Forster: "I have read 
them (Dickens's letters quoted by Forster in his Life of 
his friend) with delight and pain. His heart, his imagina- 
tion, his qualities of painting what is noble, and finding 
diamonds hidden far away, are greater here than even his 
works convey to me. How I lament he was not spared to 
us longer. I shall have a fresh grief when he dies in your 
volumes." 



CHAPTER XXXV 

THOMAS CARLYLE 

"It is almost thirty-two years since my acquaintance with 
him began ; and on my side, I may say, every new meeting 
ripened it into more and more clear discernment of his 
rare and great worth as a brother man: a most cordial, 
sincere, clear-sighted, quietly decisive, just and loving man: 
till at length he had grown to such a recognition with me 
as I have rarely had for any man of my time." 

So wrote Thomas Carlyle when Dickens died. To Forster 
he wrote: "I am profoundly sorry for you, and, indeed, 
for myself, and for us all. It is an event world-wide, a 
unique of talents suddenly extinct, and has 'eclipsed,' we, 
too, may say, 'the harmless gaiety of nations.' No death 
since 1866 has fallen on me with such a stroke. No literary 
man's hitherto ever did. The good, the gentle, high-gifted, 
ever friendly, noble Dickens — every inch of him an Honest 
Man." 

Carlyle truly loved Dickens. They had much in common. 
They were both great humorists, and, therefore, both were 
men of profound sympathy; both were quickly moved to 
scorn and indignation at oppression and chicanery ; both 
had a true and abiding faith in their fellow-men. Carlyle 
was undoubtedly, as the mother whom he loved so well said, 
"gey ill to live with," yet, though his biographer has done 
his worst for him, the "sage of Chelsea" is still revealed 
as an Honest Man, a chivalrous man, and, though the truth 
of it may not at first be obvious, a tolerant man withal. 
It is easy to gibe at Carlyle, and it is also rather fashion- 
able. Somebody once said of him that he preached the 
gospel of Silence in forty volumes. That, was rather clever, 
but it was rather silly, too. It was true, but it was not the 

205 



206 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

truth, and the difference is enormous. And, however much 
"superior people" may gibe at Carlyle, the fact stands un- 
challengeable that he was a great and noble man, a man who 
suffered privations rather than be untrue to himself, who 
would have died before he would have lied or done a dis- 
honest deed; a man who believed unshakably in the innate 
goodness of human nature, and never feared to denounce 
evil wheresover he found it. On the surface, very "diffi- 
cult," dyspeptic that he was, at heart a true Man. 

Dickens, with that insight of his, which enabled him un- 
failingly to see the real man in a friend, saw him in Carlyle 
and loved him. Froude tells us so. He says, for instance, 
that in 1860 the sage was fixed to his garret room, rarely 
stirring out, except to ride, and dining nowhere save now 
and then with Forster to meet only Dickens, "who loved him 
with all his heart." And Forster says that Carlyle was "a 
most dear friend," and that "there was no one whom in later 
life he honoured so much, or had a more profound regard 
for." 

In 1842, when Dickens was so gallantly fighting for in- 
ternational copyright in America, Carlyle stood by him, 
and wrote a letter which served him in good stead. Their 
acquaintance had only recently begun then, but that act 
served to cement the friendship, and very soon we find 
Carlyle exercising a remarkable influence over the novelist. 
The first sign of this appears in 1844, when, metaphorically 
speaking, Carlyle is at his elbow all the time he is writing 
The Chivies, and we find him writing to Forster: "Shall I 
confess to you, I particularly want Carlyle above all to 
see it before the rest of the world, when it is done?" And 
then he proposes the reading which was to become historic: 
"Don't have any one, this particular night, to dinner, but 
let it be a summons for a special purpose at half-past six. 
Carlyle indispensable, and I should like his wife of all things : 
her judgment would be invaluable." Mrs. Carlyle did not 
attend, but her husband did, and in Maclise's drawing of 
the scene, he is shown occupying the post of honour at 
Dickens's right hand. 

A few years later Hard Times — a book that reveals the 
influence of the sage in every chapter — was dedicated to 
Carlyle, and eight years after that, saturated with "The 



THOMAS CARLYLE 207 

French Revolution," which we are told he carried with him 
wherever he went, he wrote A Tale of Two Cities. 

Carlyle reciprocated the regard, as we have seen, and 
the fact is the more worthy of note, because it evidenced 
the triumph of the man Dickens over the novelist Boz ; 
for Carlyle, Scotch Puritan and dyspeptic that he was, 
assuredly had a native prejudice against Boz the novelist 
— against fiction, I mean. As, for instance, in 1837, he 
wrote : "It is worth noting how loath we are to read great 
works, how much more willingly we cross our legs, back to 
candles, feet to fire, over some Pickwick, or lowest trash of 
that sort. The reason is we are very indolent, very wearied 
and forlorn, and read oftenest chiefly that we may forget 
ourselves." Even so, he was presently constrained to admit 
that Pickwick was not such trash after all. Great humorist 
that he was, he was bound to recognise the genius of the 
book. Thus, by and by, we find him writing to Forster: 
"An Archdeacon, with his own venerable lips, repeated to 
me, the other night, a strange profane story of a clergyman 
who had been administering ghostly consolation to a sick 
person ; having finished, satisfactorily, as he thought, and 
got out of the room, he heard the sick person ejaculate, 
'Well, thank God, Pickwick will be out in ten days, any- 
way !' — this is dreadful." 

The genuine humour of Dickens conquered Carlyle, and 
it is almost startling to observe how often he quotes from 
the novels in his letters and conversation. David Copper- 
field was an especial favourite, and for Mrs. Gummidge he 
seems to have had a high regard. In 1849 we find him writ- 
ing to his wife after one of their unhappy estrangements — 
or, rather, misunderstandings : "Alas, my poor little 
Goody ! these are not good times at all. . . . Your poor 
hand and heart, too, were in a sad case on Friday. Let 
me hope you have slept well since that, given up 'thinking 
of the old 'un,' and much modified the 'Gummidge' view of 
affairs. Sickness and distraction of nerves is a good excuse 
for almost any degree of despondency. . . . But we can by 
no means permit ourselves a philosophy a la Gummidge — 
'poor lone critturs' though we be." It is recorded also by 
Forster that on the occasion of the dinner held to celebrate 
the start of Copperfield, "it was a delight to see the en- 



208 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

joyment of Dickens at Carlyle's laughing reply to ques- 
tions about his health, that he was, in the language of Mr. 
Peggotty's housekeeper, a lorn lone creature, and everything 
went contrairy with him." 

We have it, too, on Forster's authority, that Carlyle very 
highly appreciated A Tale of Two Cities and Great Ex- 
pectations, and Forster records that "a dear friend now 
gone would laughingly relate what outcry there used to be 
on the night of the week when a number was due, for 'that 
Pip nonsense !' and what roars of laughter followed, though 
at first it was entirely put aside as not on any account 
to have time wasted over it." Yes, Dickens conquered Car- 
lyle by sheer force of humour and sympathy, and Carlyle 
loved him for it. 

It was in 1840, at a dinner at the Stanleys', that they 
first met, and Carlyle records his impressions of the young 
novelist as follows: "There at the dear cost of a shattered 
set of nerves, and head set whirling for the next eight-and- 
forty hours, I did see Lords and lions. . . . Know, Pick- 
wick too was of the same dinner party, though they did not 
seem to heed him over much. He is a fine little fellow — 
Boz, I think: clear blue intelligent eyes that he arches 
amazingly, large, protrusive, rather loose mouth, a face of 
the most extreme mobility, which he shuttles about — eye- 
brows, eyes, mouth and all — in a very singular manner while 
speaking. Surmount them with a loose coil of common 
coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure very 
small and dressed a la D'Orsay rather than well — this is 
Pickwick. For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, 
who seems to guess pretty well what he is and what others 
are." 

It cannot be counted an unfavourable first impression. 
Further meetings were brought about by Forster — who, of 
course, was one of Carlyle's most trusted friends, as he was 
everybody else's — and as the two men became more intimate 
and grew to know each other, there arose that mutual re- 
gard which presently ripened into sincere affection. They 
met very often — at Gore House, among other places, as we 
have seen — and Dickens always treated his friend with 
easy gaiety, yet with a deference that was unassumed. 
Carlyle seems to have been at home and at his ease in 



THOMAS CARLYLE 209 

Dickens's company, and Mr. Percy Fitzgerald recalls a 
dinner at which the only company were Forster, Dickens, 
Carlyle and himself, when Dickens "played round" the stage 
as Garrick did round Johnson — affectionately in high good 
humour and wit, "and I could well see much pleasing the 
old lion." 

It was a high tribute to his regard for the novelist when, 
in 1863, Carlyle attended one of Dickens's readings "to 
the complete upsetting of my evening habitudes and spiritual 
composure." But he enjoyed it, despite himself — "Dickens 
does do it capitally such as it is, acts better than any 
Macready in the world; a whole tragic comic heroic theatre 
visible, performing under one hat, and keeping us laughing 
— in a sorry way some of us thought — the whole night." 

Yes, Dickens conquered Carlyle. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

BULWER LYTTON AND LAMAN BLANCHARD 

One of the most brilliant stars in the Gore House con- 
stellation was Edward Bulwer. With him in these days 
Dickens formed a friendship that was quite unalloyed, and 
lasted right until the end without any breach or lessening 
of regard. It must be confessed that at first blush this 
friendship is rather difficult to understand. Superficially, 
Lytton had few of those qualities that one imagines appealed 
to Dickens. There is very little evidence in his books or 
his plays of those broad human sympathies that we find in 
Dickens. The impression is one of considerably more head 
than heart. But it is quite unjust thus to dismiss Lytton. 
Had circumstances behaved a little more kindly towards 
him he would have been a very different man from what he 
was, and the world might have been far more indebted to 
him than it is. A spoiled child, he early found himself com- 
pelled to write against time for money, whilst for very 
many years his life was embittered by the tragic failure of 
his marriage, and the persecution he suffered from his wife. 
The only wonder is that his earlier books do not bear more 
traces than they do of having been "pot boilers," and that 
his later work is not overclouded with cynicism. Bred in a 
different school, blessed with a happy marriage, Lytton 
might have been a very great man. I think H. F. Chorley 
struck the right note when he wrote, Lytton "has a thor- 
oughly satin character; but then it is the richest satin. . . . 
It is a fine energetic, inquisitive mind, if I mistake not, that 
has been blighted and bent too soon." 

"All these things contributed to make me what I am," 
wrote Dickens once when recalling his boyhood, and so might 
Lytton have written. His life's story is indeed a very sad 
one; loneliness and lack of sympathy dogged him always, 

210 




«£&• 



LORD Lytton 



B. LYTTON AND L. BLANCHARD 211 

until in his later years he found much consolation in the 
affection of his son, Robert. His life, says his grandson, 
the present Earl Lytton, was on the whole a singularly 
lonely one. "Neither in literature nor in politics did he 
belong to any intimate set. He went little into Society, and 
he never stayed for many months in the same place." His 
domestic tragedy was no mere "skeleton in the cupboard"; 
it dogged him whithersoever he went ; and the wonder is that 
he achieved half so much as he did. 

But his nature at bottom was good. Prof. Jowett says, 
"He left upon me an impression of genuine kindness, and 
endless activity of mind, of great knowledge, and of a noble 
interest in literature and literary men." Many tales of his 
kindness are told. For Macready, for instance, he did much 
when the actor was struggling at Covent Garden. He was 
chiefly instrumental, too, in obtaining a pension for Tom 
Hood; whilst we shall see how he threw himself into the 
Guild of Literature and Art scheme. No man, in fact, 
ever showed more loyalty to his art, or was more ready to 
assist a brother artist, and to say this of any man is to 
give him high praise. The present Earl Lytton says, 
"There were many who loved him truly," and it is quite 
true. The greatest friend of his life was John Forster, for 
whom he had a very deep and lasting affection, and prob- 
ably next to Forster in his regard came Dickens, with whom 
he really had more in common than is apparent. First and 
foremost, I think, so far as Dickens, at any rate, was con- 
cerned, there was the high regard in which they both held 
their art. It was always a very strong point with Dickens, 
this jealousy for the dignity and reputation of his art. 
Literature was to Dickens a noble calling, not at any time 
to be held lightly, and in this he and Lytton were in com- 
plete sympathy. Of him he was able to say: "In the path 
we both tread I have uniformly found him from the first 
the most generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to dis- 
parage, ever anxious to assert the order of which he is so 
great an ornament ; never condescending to shuffle it off, and 
leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave his 
slippers outside a mosque." 

Then, of course, there was their joint interest in the Guild 
of Literature and Art, which was brought into being and 



212 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

given a degree of vitality for many years, as a result of 
their activity and earnestness. Another interest that they 
had in common was the study of the occult. This had a 
stronger hold over Lytton than over Dickens, but of the 
latter's interest in it there is ample evidence. And finally 
the mutual friendship of Forster must have been a strong 
tie. 

Mr. R. Renton surmises that Lytton and Dickens first 
met at the house of Colborn, the publisher. He is probably 
correct, but, in any case, we are safe in assuming that the 
meeting was brought about by Forster. And it was in the 
early days of Dickens's fame, because in Macready's Diary 
for the late 'thirties we find him recording several visits 
paid to his green room by the two novelists, whilst Forster 
tells us that in 1840 Lytton was one of the many friends 
with whom there were many social foregatherings, adding, 
"Of the genius of the author of 'Pelham' and 'Eugene Aram' 
he had, early and late, the highest admiration, and he took 
occasion to express it during the present year in a new 
preface which he published to Oliver Twist." 1 

But although they were very friendly from the first, and 
met often, it was their association in the establishment of 
the Guild of Literature and Art that brought about their 
intimacy. "In the year of the establishment of Household 
Words, Dickens resumed what I have called his splendid 
strolling on behalf of a scheme for the advantage of men 
of letters, to which a great brother author had given the 
sanction of his name and genius." In these words Forster 
introduces the Guild. Recent experience of the success of 
the theatrical performances in aid of Hunt and Poole and 
Knowles "had shown what the public interest in this kind 
of amusement might place within reach of its providers ; 
and there came to be discussed the possibility of making 
permanent such help as had been afforded to fellow-writers, 
by means of an endowment that should not be mere charity, 
but should combine something of both pension-list and col- 

>"Sir Edward Bulwer's admirable and most powerful novel of 'Paul 
Clifford.' " See Preface to Third Edition. A similar complimentary reference 
to Dickens was made by Lytton in his Preface to "Night and Morning" in 
1845, where he wrote of "that popular and pre-eminent observer of the age 
in which we live," intimating in a note that the reference was to Dickens. 



B. LYTTON AND L. BLANCHARD 213 

lege-lectureship, without the drawbacks of either. It was 
not enough considered that schemes for self-help, to be 
successful, require from those they are meant to benefit, not 
only a general assent to their desirability, but zealous co- 
operation. Too readily assuming what should have had 
more thorough investigation, the enterprise was set on foot, 
and the 'Guild of Literature and Art' originated at Kneb- 
worth." 

The scheme undoubtedly was the child of Dickens's brain, 
and he took it up with all the enthusiasm which character- 
ised him in everything he ever undertook, but Lytton was 
scarcely less enthusiastic. They had seen enough to convince 
them of the need for some such scheme. Tom Hood, Leigh 
Hunt, John Poole, Sheridan Knowles — all had been helped 
nobly by brother artists, and Dickens and Lytton were de- 
termined to make an effort to place such assistance on a 
permanent and organised basis. It was the tragic case of 
poor Laman Blanchard that actuated them most of all. 
Blanchard was a friend of both men: he was one of that 
select gathering at Lincoln's Inn Fields which listened to 
Dickens's reading of The Chimes. Of him Lytton wrote: 

"To most of those who have mixed generally with 
the men who in our day have chosen literature as a 
profession, the name of Laman Blanchard brings recol- 
lections of peculiar tenderness and regret. . . . They 
recall the memory of a competitor without envy, a 
partisan without gall ; firm as the firmest in the main- 
tenance of his own opinions ; but gentle as the gentlest 
in the judgment he passed on others. Whom among 
our London brotherhood of letters does not miss that 
simple cheerfulness, that inborn exquisite urbanity, 
that child-like readiness to be pleased, with all that 
happy tendency to panygerise for merit and to be 
lenient to every fault . . . who, in convivial meetings 
does not miss and will not miss for ever that sweetness 
of those unpretending talents, the earnestness of that 
honesty which seemed unconscious, it was worn so 
lightly — the mild influence of that exuberant kindness 
which softened the acrimony of any disputants and 
reconciled the secret animosities of jealous rivals?" 



214 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

And here we may appropriately quote a letter of Dickens's 
to Blanchard, as showing the affection in which the Author 
of Pickwick held him: 

"I cannot thank you enough for the beautiful man- 
ner and the true spirit of friendship in which you have 
noticed my Carol. But I must thank you because you 
have filled my heart up to the brim and it is running 
over. 

"You meant to give me great pleasure, dear fellow, 
and you have done it. The tone of your elegant and 
fervent praise has touched me in the tenderest place. 
I cannot write about it, and as to talking of it, I could 
no more do that than a dumb man. I have derived 
inexpressible gratification from what I know was a 
labour of love on your part. And I can never forget it. 

"When I think it likely that I may meet you (per- 
haps at Ainsworth's on Friday?) I shall slip a Carol 
into my pocket and ask you to put it among your 
books for my sake. You will never like it the less for 
having made it the means of so much happiness to me. 

"Always, my dear Blanchard, faithfully, your 
friend " 

Born in 1804, Blanchard early achieved notice as a writer 
of great promise, but, handicapped by a lack of this world's 
goods, he was compelled to lay aside his higher gifts, and 
devote himself to popular journalism. Yet, all the time, 
we are told, he looked forward to the period when he might 
realise the cherished dreams of his youth, "escape from his 
hurried compositions for the day and the hour, and return 
into his inner self and there meditate the production of some 
work which might justify the critics' belief in the promise 
of his early efforts." But it was not to be, and in 1845 
he ended his life by his own hand. 

It was the memory of poor Laman Blanchard that spurred 
Dickens and Lytton on to establish the Guild of Literature 
and Art. They determined that if they could prevent it 
no struggling author or artist should again be placed in 
the same predicament. "I do devoutly believe," wrote 
Dickens to Lytton, "that this plan, carried by the support 



B. LYTTON AND L. BLANCHARD 215 

which I trust will be given to it, will change the status of 
the literary man in England, and make a revolution in his 
position which no government, no power on earth but his 
own, could ever effect. I have implicit confidence in the 
scheme? — so splendidly begun — if we carry it out with a 
steadfast energy. I have a strong conviction that we hold 
in our hands the peace and honour of men of letters for 
centuries to come, and that you are destined to be their 
best and most enduring benefactor. . . . Oh, what a pro- 
cession of new years may walk out of all this for the class 
we belong to after we are dust." It was a noble scheme, 
which failed only because, as Forster puts it, "the support 
indispensable to success was not as Dickens too sanguinely 
hoped, given to it by literary men themselves." In 1897 
the Guild had to be dissolved, and by Act of Parliament its 
endowment was divided between the Royal Literary Fund 
and the Artists' General Benevolent Institution. It had 
degenerated into a mere charity which was exactly what its 
promoters had been most anxious to avoid. 

The Guild was inaugurated at Knebworth, where three 
private performances were given of "Every Man in His 
Humour," Lytton bearing the whole of the expenses. This 
was in November 1850. It was decided to give further 
public performances in aid of the scheme in London and 
the provinces. Lytton agreed to write a five-act comedy, 
and Dickens a farce. Lytton fulfilled his part of the bar- 
gain, and produced "Not so Bad as we Seem," but Dickens 
had to "cry off," and "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," by Mark 
Lemon, was substituted, Dickens, however, contributing so 
much fun to it that it was eventually billed as "by Mr. 
Charles Dickens and Mr. Mark Lemon." 

The first performance, at Devonshire House, on Wednes- 
day, June 18, 1851, in the presence of the Queen and Prince 
Consort, was a very brilliant affair, and the subsequent tour 
was a great success. At Manchester, which was the last 
place but one visited, a public dinner was held, and Lytton 
attended. "Bulwer," wrote Dickens to Forster, "spoke bril- 
liantly at the Manchester dinner, and his earnestness and 
determination about the Guild was most impressive. It 
carried everything before it." 

The writing of a comedy did not end Lytton's interest 



216 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

in the Guild by a very long way. In 1854* he carried through 
Parliament a Bill to incorporate it, and in 1863 he made 
a free gift of a piece of land upon his estate upon which 
three houses were built to form residences for more needy 
authors or artists. When these houses were opened the 
members of the Guild visited them, and were afterwards 
entertained at Knebworth by Lytton, whose health was pro- 
posed by Dickens : 

"In thanking him for the toast which he has done us 
the honour to propose, allow me to correct an error 
into which he has fallen. Allow me to state that these 
houses never could have been built but for his zealous 
and valuable co-operation, and also that the pleasant 
labour out of which they have arisen would have lost 
one of its greatest charms and strongest impulses, if 
it had lost his ever-ready sympathy with that class in 
which he has risen to the foremost rank, and of which 
he is the brightest ornament. 

"Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the 
feelings of my brothers and sisters in literature in 
proposing 'Health, long life, and prosperity to our 
distinguished host.' Ladies and gentlemen, you know 
very well that when the health, life, and beauty now 
overflowing these halls shall have fled, crowds of people 
will come to see the place where he lived and wrote. 
Setting aside the orator and statesman — for happily 
we know no party here but this agreeable party — set- 
ting aside all this, you know very well, that this is the 
home of a very great man whose connection with Hert- 
fordshire every other county in England will envy for 
many a long year to come. You know that when this 
hall is dullest and emptiest you can make it when you 
please brightest and fullest by peopling it with the 
creations of his brilliant fancy. Let us all wish to- 
gether that they may be many more — for the more they 
are the better it will be, and, as he always excels him- 
self, the better they will be. I ask you to listen to 
their praises and not to mine, and to let them, and not 
me, propose their health." 



B. LYTTON AND L. BLANCHARD 217 

Dickens and Lytton had been excellent friends from the 
begining, but their association with the Guild of Literature 
and Art naturally brought them very close together indeed, 
and henceforth they were on the most affectionate terms. 
They exchanged visits frequently, and there were few whom 
Dickens welcomed more gladly at Gadshill. 

In 1851, whilst the rehearsals for the Guild performances 
were in progress, Macready left the stage. Lytton pre- 
sided at the banquet which was given in the actor's honour, 
and Dickens proposed his health in a glowing speech. On 
November 2, 1867, Lytton was in the chair at the great 
banquet which was given to Dickens on the eve of his de- 
parture for his American reading tour, and in proposing 
the Guest's health paid an affectionate tribute to his great 
literary rival and personal friend who had helped to refine 
humanity "by tears that never enfeeble and laughter that 
never degrades." Before we come to note briefly the purely 
literary associations of the friends, it is interesting to ob- 
serve that in November 1858 they were rival candidates for 
the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University, a third candi- 
date being another of Dickens's most esteemed friends, the 
famous Lord Shaftesbury. And the result of the poll was 
Lytton 216; Shaftesbury 203; Dickens 68. 

Dickens had a very high opinion of Lytton's judgment 
in regard to his art, and allowed it to influence him con- 
siderably. Over and over again we find him referring to 
Lytton's criticism of this book and that, always expressing 
gratification if the criticism is favourable and always 
speaking of anything in the shape of adverse criticism with 
the profoundest respect. But it is generally admitted that 
Lytton's judgment was at fault in the case of Great Ex- 
pectations and that Dickens did unwisely in acting upon it. 
"You will be surprised," he wrote to Forster, "to hear that 
I have changed the end of Great Expectations from and 
after Pip's return to Joe's, and finding his little likeness 
there. Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, ex- 
traordinarily taken by the book, so strongly urged it upon 
me, after reading the proofs, and supported his view with 
such good reasons, that I resolved to make the change. . . . 
I have put in as pretty a little bit of writing as I could, and 
I have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through 



218 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

the alteration."' Forster comments. 4 "This turned out to 
be the case, but the first ending nevertheless seems to be 
more consistent with the drift, as well as natural working 
out, of the tale." The first ending left Pip a lonely man, 
but, as George Gissing says, "by the irony of fate he was 
induced to spoil his work through a brother novelist's desire 
for a happy ending — a strange thing indeed to befall 
Dickens." 

It would be easy to give many quotations from Lytton 
and from Dickens showing how highly each esteemed the 
other's art, but it must suffice to say that never did two 
competitors in the race for fame respect each other more 
truly — never were two literary men more free from 
jealousies. 

In 1861 Lytton wrote, at Dickens's earnest request, a 
serial story for All the Year Round. This was "A Strange 
Story," which followed Great Expectations. Unfortunately, 
it did not please the readers of All tlie Year Round, and it 
fell flat. 

It only needs to be added that Dickens entertained for 
his friend's son, Robert, a very high regard, and was de- 
lighted to welcome him as a contributor to All the Year 
Round. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 



TENNYSON 



To these early days in particular belongs the friendship 
with Tennyson. It lasted till the end, but it was in the 
early 'forties that they saw most of each other. After his 
marriage in 1850 the poet practically dropped out of the 
Circle, and there is recorded only one instance of his subse- 
quently rejoining it. That was in June 1851 when he at- 
tended the Copperfield dinner at the Star and Garter, Rich- 
mond. He was then living at Twickenham, but in 1853 he 
settled at Freshwater, and thenceforward he and Dickens 
met but rarely. Indeed, it is remarkable to note that there 
is no evidence that they met even when Dickens visited the 
Isle of Wight. 

The friendship, however, was never an intimate one. 
Dickens had a great liking for the poet and a tremendous 
admiration for his poetry. "He never faltered in his allegi- 
ance to Tennyson," says Forster; and in another place, 
"To Alfred Tennyson, through all the friendly and familiar 
days I am describing, he gave full allegiance and honoured 
welcome." Mary Boyle tells us : "One day I went with his 
two daughters . . . and their aunt to meet him at the 
station. Lifting up the hand-bag which he always carried, 
he exclaimed: 'Here, girls, I have a treat for you — Tenny- 
son's magnificent poem of "The Idylls of the King." Is it 
not glorious to think that having written for so many years, 
a man should now bring forth perhaps the noblest of his 
works?' " Of the "Idylls," he wrote to Forster: 

"How fine the 'Idylls' are! Lord! what a blessed 
thing it is to read a man who can write ! I thought 
nothing could be grander than the first poem till I 
came to the third; but when I had read the last, it 

219 



220 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

seemed to be absolutely unapproached and unapproach- 
able." 

I am able to state, on the authority of the poet's son, that 
the admiration was mutual. "Dickens profoundly admired 
my Father," writes Lord Tennyson. "My father admired 
Dickens, and thought Pickwick his most original work. He 
did not like his pathos, except in one case, that of Old 
Cheeseman, of which story he thought highly." 

Tennyson loved London as much as Dickens did, though 
his knowledge of it was not as "extensive and peculiar." 
"He always delighted in the 'central roar' of London," says 
the present Lord Tennyson in his biography of his father. 
"Whenever he and I went to London, one of the first things 
we did was to walk to the Strand and Fleet Street." He 
adds that his father would often dine with his friends at 
the Cock and other taverns, and "a perfect dinner was a 
beefsteak, a potato, a pint of port, and afterwards a pipe 
(never a cigar). . . . Very genial evenings they were, with 
plenty of anecdote and wit, and 'thrust and parry of bright 
monostick.' " Dickens and Forster and Maclise were often 
among the company on such occasions. 

There was a curious link between the novelist and the 
poet, for in his early days, the latter had lived at 58 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, under the same roof as Forster. In 
March 1843 Dickens presented Tennyson with a set of his 
works, sending the following letter with the gift: 

"My dear Tennyson, 

"For the love I bear you as a man whose 
writings enlist my whole heart and nature in admiration 
of their Truth and Beauty, set these books upon your 
shelves ; believing that you have no more earnest and 
sincere homage than mine, 

"Faithfully and Gratefully your Friend, 

"Charles Dickens." 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

A GROUP OF PUBLISHERS 

There remains one small group who may be spoken of 
before we accompany the novelist on his American tours. 
Several publishers were prominent among his friends. 
There were misunderstandings with some of them, but only 
on business grounds, and the friendships were not seriously 
damaged. 

First, naturally, we speak of Chapman and Hall. And 
we will reverse the order in which all the world ever speaks of 
them, for Hall was the first to meet Dickens. The incident 
is a very interesting one, constituting one of the red-letter 
events in the novelist's life. One evening in 1833 young 
Charles Dickens, a newspaper reporter, stealthily, with fear 
and trembling, dropped into a dark letter-box in a dark office 
up a dark court in Fleet Street, the MS. of a short story. It 
was his first bid for fame. Some time afterwards, in Decem- 
ber of that same year, he purchased at a shop in the Strand 
a copy of the "Old Monthly Magazine," and therein saw 
that same story in all the glory of type. "On which occa- 
sion I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into 
it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with 
joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and 
were not fit to be seen there." Exactly two years later 
a gentleman called on him at his chambers in Furnival's 
Inn, and made the proposal which begot Tlie Pickwick 
Papers and the young reporter's fame. Boz recognised his 
visitor as the man who had sold him the issue of the "Old 
Monthly Magazine" for December 1833. It was Mr. Hall, 
junior partner in the recently-established publishing firm 
of Chapman and Hall. A genuine friendship ensued be- 
tween the two men. There were misunderstandings at times, 
though. Hall, for instance, dropped what Forster calls an 

221 



222 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

inconsiderate hint with reference to putting a clause in the 
agreement respecting Martin Chuzzlewit into force. The 
clause was to the effect that if on the first five numbers the 
profits should fall below a certain point a certain sum 
should be deducted from the author's payments ; and the 
early sales of Martin Chuzzlewit were disappointing. 
Dickens was indignant — though he ought to have known his 
man a little better — and he proposed to break with the 
firm, and then to give Hall "a piece of his mind." On 
Forster's advice he did not carry out that proposal at the 
time, but presently disappointment with the Carol receipts 
stirred him, and he and Chapman and Hall parted com- 
pany. The breach was not for long, however, and he re- 
turned to them again for good. In 1841 there had been 
another misunderstanding in connection with which Dickens 
had considered Hall to be "morally and physically feeble, 
though perfectly well intentioned." "Well intentioned" 
summed Hall up admirably, and Dickens could always make 
allowances for a well-intentioned man, and despite their 
differences he liked him and had much pleasant intercourse 
with him. Hall died in 1847, and Dickens sincerely re- 
gretted the loss of "poor Hall," whose funeral he attended 
with Forster. 

Of Edward Chapman, the senior partner, Dickens seems 
to have had a higher opinion. When Hall was "morally 
and physically feeble," Chapman was "very manly and 
sensible." He came under the clouds as Hall's partner, of 
course, but there was a mutual respect and liking that was 
not really affected by the misunderstandings, and they re- 
mained good friends to the end. Frederic Chapman, who 
joined the firm in 1841, was a particularly hearty, good- 
natured man, and he and Dickens were always on the best 
of terms. 

Macrone was Dickens's first publisher. In 1835 Ains- 
worth introduced him to this gentleman, who, in the fol- 
lowing year, published Sketches by Boz in book form. We 
need not concern ourselves with him to any extent. Forster 
has told how, when Dickens found that unwittingly he had 
let himself in for an impossible amount of work through 
ill-considered agreements with publishers, Macrone was in- 
accessible to all arguments, and had to be bought out. He 



A GROUP OF PUBLISHERS 223 

was an adventurer, as his solicitor admitted in a letter to 
Forster, though we must be just enough to remember that 
he had made a big speculation with the Sketches; and so 
ought not to be criticised too severely for desiring to benefit 
to the full from the unlooked-for success of Pickwick. Mr. 
Percy Fitzgerald says that Macrone was a fellow-resident 
of Dickens's at Furnival's Inn, and so must have been in- 
timate with him. It does not follow, however, that because 
two men are next-door neighbours they are intimate with 
one another, and, as a matter of fact, Dickens and Macrone 
never met until 1835, and though they naturally came to 
know each other pretty well, I can find no justification for 
talking about intimacy. 

At the close of 1836 Richard Bentley published The 
Village Coquettes (one's head reels at the contemplation of 
the quantity of work young Boz undertook at this time). 
The sixth number of Pickwick had not yet appeared, when, 
on August 22, 1836, Dickens signed an agreement with 
Bentley to undertake the editing of a monthly magazine 
to be started the following January, to which he was to 
supply a serial story. Soon afterwards he had agreed with 
the same publisher to write two other tales. With Pickwick 
on hand, the task proved too much, and a compromise was 
arrived at amicably. Later a similar difficulty arose, and 
six months of wrangling followed. A further agreement was 
reached, but still difficulties continued, until at last a final 
settlement was reached, and Dickens linked himself with 
Chapman and Hall. Bentley seems to have been honest 
and fair in his intentions, and Forster has not dealt too 
charitably with him. As to Dickens's personal relations 
nothing can be said, for nothing seems to be known, but it 
is clearly evident that there was no friendship. 

With Bradbury and with Evans relations were much more 
intimate. He went to them when he squabbled with Chap- 
man and Hall in 1844, and remained with them until 1859. 
Then came a dispute which apparently arose out of their 
refusal to publish in "Punch" that unhappy manifesto re- 
specting his domestic troubles. A law case ensued respect- 
ing Household Words, and the court ordered the property 
to be sold. Dickens bought it and killed it, and started All 
the Year Round. Bradbury and Evans promptly started 



224 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"Once a Week," and the breach was complete. But in the 
years between 1844 and 1858 there was considerable friend- 
liness with both Bradbury and Evans. They were familiar 
guests at Devonshire House, and with Evans, at any rate, 
there could not have been an absolute rupture of the friend- 
ship. For the novelist's eldest son had fallen in love with 
the publisher's daughter, and in November 1861 Charles 
Dickens the Younger was married to Miss Evans. 

There is one other publisher who finds a place here by 
virtue wholly of his personal friendship with Dickens. 
Thomas Longman never published anything of Dickens's, 
but he was more intimate with the author than any one who 
did, save only James T. Fields. He was a friend from the 
earliest Broadstairs' days, and, says Forster, remained a 
special favourite always. It was to Longman, it will be 
remembered, to whom Dickens recommended young Marcus 
Stone shortly after Frank Stone's death. 






CHAPTER XXXIX 

AMERICAN FRIENDS WASHINGTON IRVING 

The ovations which Dickens received in Scotland in 1841 
were but a slight foretaste of what he was to receive in 
America in the following year. He went to a land where 
he was as loved as he was in his own land. In America his 
genius, his humanising influence, had been recognised as 
quickly as here, and The Old Curiosity Shop had completed 
the conquest. It was a letter from Washington Irving about 
that book that finally determined him to cross the Atlantic. 
The reception that was accorded him is historic. Never 
before had any visitor been so welcomed. Everywhere Boz 
was the idol, and his progress was one steady triumph. 
Owing to his plain speaking on the international copy- 
right question he gave offence in some quarters, and when 
he returned home and wrote American Notes and Martin 
Chuzzlewit there was a general revulsion of feeling. The 
Americans became almost as noisy in their denunciations 
of Boz as they had previously been in their demonstrations 
of affection. But it was a passing anger. Our cousins 
went on reading his books, and gradually he reconquered 
them. After an interval of a quarter of a century he 
revisited the States and was given a reception which sur- 
passed the former one in enthusiasm and affection. Never 
since has the sky been clouded. To-day the Americans are 
more enthusiastic Dickens lovers than we are ourselves. 

With his travels and doings in America we are not con- 
cerned now. Our concern is with some of the friendships 
that he formed in that country. He went among a nation 
of friends, of course, but there were choice spirits with whom 
he became very intimate. The English friends whom he 
loved as he loved Washington Irving, for instance, were 
very few indeed, Longfellow he grappled to his heart with 

225 



226 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

hoops of steel; so did he Prof. Felton. Later James T. 
Fields was established in his affection. Others with whom 
he became on very friendly terms were James Russell Lowell, 
Charles Eliot Norton, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Childs, Emer- 
son, Dana, Bancroft, etc. 

Best loved of them all was "Geoffrey Crayon." Mr. W. 
Glyde Wilkins in "Dickens and America" accepts the sug- 
gestion that the chief influence that decided Dickens to pay 
his first visit to the States was his desire to see Cairo. I 
think a much stronger influence than that was his desire 
to meet in the flesh the author of "The Sketch Book." 
They had already corresponded. In 1841 Irving had 
written to Dickens "expressing my heartfelt delight with 
his writings, and my yearnings towards himself" and "that 
glorious fellow" had, as Forster says, answered him with 
more than his own warmth: 

"There is no man in the world who could have given 
me the heartfelt pleasure you have by your kind note. 
. . . There is no living writer, and there are very few 
among the dead, whose approbation I should feel so 
proud to earn. And with everything you have written 
upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart 
of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If you 
could know how earnestly I write this, you would be 
glad to read it — as I hope you will be, faintly guessing 
at the warmth of the hand I autographically hold out 
to you over the broad Atlantic." 

In October 1841 Irving wrote to his niece, Mrs. Storrow: 
"What do you think? Dickens is actually coming to 
America. . . ." They first met in New York, and each 
was just what the other expected to find him — Boz breezy 
and generous-hearted, Crayon unaffected, homely, and lov- 
able. And so the friendship, which had so far only existed 
"autographically," was cemented. 

Before that first meeting, Irving's had been one of the 
signatures appended to an address of welcome from the 
citizens of New York. The dinner, an invitation to which 
had been included in that address, took place on the follow- 
ing day, and Irving was in the chair. About 800 guests 




Washington Irving 

From an Engraving by Joseph Brown 



WASHINGTON IRVING 227 

were present, and in the course of his speech Dickens made 
a wholly delightful reference to his friend: 

"Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don't go 
upstairs to bed two nights out of the seven . . . with- 
out taking Washington Irving under my arm; and 
when I don't take him, I take his own brother, Oliver 
Goldsmith. . . . Washington Irving — Diedrich Knick- 
erbocker — Geoffrey Crayon — why, where can you go 
that they have not been there before? Is there an 
English farm — is there an English stream, an English 
city, or an English country-seat where they have not 
been? Is there no Bracebridge Hall in existence? Has 
it no ancient shades or quiet streets?" 

This was the occasion on which Irving broke down in his 
speech. His and Dickens's common friend, Prof. Felton, 
has told the story. Irving, he says, always shrank with a 
comical terror from making an after-dinner speech, and 
on this occasion he was full of forebodings that he would 
break down. 

"He had brought the manuscript of his speech, and 
laid it under his plate. 'I shall certainly break down,' 
he repeated over and over again. At last the moment 
arrived. Mr. Irving rose, and was received with deaf- 
ening and long-continued applause, which by no means 
lessened his apprehension. He began in his pleasant 
voice; got through two or three sentences pretty 
easily, but in the next hesitated; and, after one or two 
attempts to go on, gave it up, with a graceful allusion 
to the tournament and the troop of knights all armed 
and eager for the fray; and ended with the toast, 
'Charles Dickens, the Guest of the nation.' 'There !' 
said he, as he resumed his seat under a repetition of 
the applause which had saluted his rising — 'there! I 
told you I should break down, and I've done it.' " 

Following the New York dinner, Dickens and Irving 
journeyed to Washington together, and there spent a few 
days. Then they said what both expected to be the last 
"good-bye" before Irving sailed for Spain, where he was 



228 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

to take up the duties of American minister. "Irving . . . 
•wept heartily at parting," wrote Dickens to Forster, add- 
ing, "He is a fine fellow, when you know him; and you 
would relish him, my dear friend, of all things. We have 
laughed together at some absurdities we have encountered 
in company, quite in my vociferous Devonshire Terrace 
style." A day or two later he wrote to Irving himself: 

"We passed through — literally passed through — this 
place again to-day. I did not come to see you, for 
I really have not the heart to say 'good-bye' again, and 
felt more than I can tell you when we shook hands 
last Wednesday. 

"You will not be at Baltimore, I fear? I thought 
at the time that you only said you might be there, 
to make our parting the gayer. Wherever you go, 
God bless you ! What pleasure I have had in seeing 
and talking with you, I will not attempt to say. I 
shall never forget it as long as I live. What would I 
give if we could have but a quiet week together ! Spain 
is a lazy place, and its climate an indolent one. But 
if you ever have leisure under its sunny skies to think 
of a man who loves you, and holds communion with 
your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person 
alive — leisure from listlessness, I mean — and will write 
to me in London, you will give me an inexpressible 
amount of pleasure." 

They did meet again, in Baltimore, for Irving could not 
resist the opportunity of saying one more farewell. "Wash- 
ington Irving has come in for another leave-taking, and 
dines with me to-day," Dickens wrote to Forster. It was 
indeed their last leave-taking. They never met in London, 
and when Dickens revisited the States, his friend had been 
dead nearly ten years. That farewell dinner at Baltimore 
on March 23, 1842, was always a happy memory with 
Dickens. During his second American tour he thus replied 
to a letter from Mr. Charles Lanman: 

"Your reference to my dear friend Washington 
Irving renews the vivid impressions reawakened in my 



WASHINGTON IRVING 229 

mind at Baltimore but the other day. I saw his fine 
face for the last time in that city. He came there 
from New York to pass a day or two with me before 
I went westward; and they were made among the most 
memorable of my life by his delightful fancy and genial 
humour. Some unknown admirer of his books and mine 
sent to the hotel a most enormous mint julep, wreathed 
with flowers. We sat, one on either side of it, with 
great solemnity (it filled a respectably-sized round 
table), but the solemnity was of very short duration. 
It was quite an enchanted julep, and carried us among 
innumerable people and places that we both knew. The 
julep held out far into the night, and my memory never 
saw him afterwards otherwise than as bending over it, 
with his straw, with an attempted air of gravity (after 
some anecdote involving some wonderfully droll and 
delicate observation of character), and then, as his eye 
caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of 
his, which was the brightest and best I have ever 
heard." 

There can be no irreverence in imagining these two friends, 
so close bound in life, recalling in the land of Shadows, that 
last happy night they spent together on earth, when the 
happiness was tinged with the sadness of farewell. 



CHAPTER XL 

AMERICAN FRIENDS (continued) LONGFELLOW 

Next to Irving, Dickens's best-loved American friend was 
Longfellow. The earliest reference to the poet in Forster's 
book is contained in a letter written by Dickens soon after 
his arrival in the States : "The professors at the Cambridge 
University, Longfellow, Felton, Jared Sparks, are noble 
fellows." A little later he confirmed this first impression: 
"Longfellow ... is a frank accomplished man, as well as 
a fine writer." The poet was a man of a type likely to 
appeal to Boz — frank, genial, capable of joviality, and ever 
ready to open his heart to those whom he counted his 
friends. 

They met several times during Dickens's first American 
tour, and when in the autumn of the same year Longfellow 
came to England, Dickens was eager to welcome him and 
repay some of the kindness that he had received across the 
water. Needless to say, the door of Devonshire Terrace 
was flung wide open, and there were sounds of revelry by 
night during the poet's stay in London. "You and I," he 
wrote to Forster some years later, "were the j oiliest of all 
the youths at Dickens's table in the autumn of 1842." 
Forster records how, twenty-six years later, the author of 
"Hiawatha" reminded him of two experiences of many that 
they enjoyed during the visit. "One of these was a day at 
Rochester, when, met by one of those prohibitions which 
are the wonder of visitors and the shame of Englishmen, 
we overleapt gates and barriers, and, setting at defiance 
repeated threats of all the terrors of law coarsely expressed 
to us by the custodian of the place, explored the castle 
ruins. The other was a night among those portions of the 
population who outrage the law and defy its terrors all the 
days of their lives, the tramps and thieves of London ; when, 

230 



LONGFELLOW 231 

under guidance and protection of the most trusted officers 
of the metropolitan prisons ... we went over the worst 
haunts of the most dangerous classes." 

Longfellow returned home by the "Great Western," 
Dickens travelling with him to Bristol, whence he sailed. 
They next met in America in 1867, and a warm welcome 
awaited the novelist at Sunnyside. "Dickens was here last 
night," wrote the poet to Forster; "it is a great pleasure 
to see Dickens again after so many years, with the same 
sweetness and flavour as of old." Longfellow was one of 
the guests at the dinner which followed the great Walking 
Match between George Dolby ("the Man of Ross") and 
James R. Osgood ("the Boston Bantam"). It will be re- 
membered that in the humorous "Articles of Agreement" 
for this match, drawn up by Dickens ("the Gad's Hill 
Gasper") the last two names of those who are to honour 
the dinner by their presence are "an obscure poet named 
Longfellow (if discoverable) and Miss Longfellow." The 
two friends met very often — daily, indeed, whenever Dickens 
was in Boston — and one of the happiest evenings of the 
tour was spent at Longfellow's house, when the following 
immortals dined together: Longfellow, Dickens, Agassiz, 
Lowell, Holmes, and Bayard Taylor. It is scarcely sur- 
prising to find Dolby recording that the dinner was a most 
enjoyable one, and that the fun flew fast and furious! 

In June 1868 Longfellow paid his last visit to England 
accompanied by his daughters, and Dickens laid himself out 
to give his friend a right royal time: "At the arrival of 
friends whom he loved and honoured as he did these, from 
the great country to which he owed so much," says Forster, 
"infinite were the rejoicings at Gadshill." The weather was 
glorious, and though the poet's stay was short, the small 
house-party had, as Dickens wrote to Fields, "a really good 
time." 

"I showed them all the neighbouring country that 
could be shown in so short a time, and they finished 
off with a tour of inspection of the kitchens, pantry, 
wine-cellar, pickles, sauces, servants' sitting-room, gen- 
eral household stores, and even the Cellar Book of this 
illustrious establishment. ... I turned out a couple 



232 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

of postilions in the old red jacket of the old red royal 
Dover road, for our ride ; and it was like a holiday ride 
in England fifty years ago." 

Just two years later, Longfellow was writing to Forster: 
"The terrible news from England fills us all with inex- 
pressible sadness. Dickens was so full of life that it did 
not seem possible he could die, and yet he has gone from 
us, and we are sorrowing for him. ... I never knew an 
author's death cause such general mourning. It is no ex- 
aggeration to say that this whole country is stricken with 
grief." 



CHAPTER XLI 

AMERICAN FRIENDS (continued) PROFESSOR FELTON 

Among Americans, next to Irving and Longfellow in 
Dickens's regard came Cornelius Conway Felton, Professor 
of Greek at Harvard, to whom some of his best and most 
Dickensian letters were written. "A most delightful fellow" 
was Dickens's description of him, and we are told by the 
Editors of the novelist's Letters that he was one of the most 
heartily loved friends. They first met at Boston in 1842, 
they became firm friends at once, and when Dickens set 
out on his tour Felton accompanied him as far as New 
York. A little later we find Dickens writing to this "very 
dear friend": 

"You carried away with you more than half the 
delight and pleasure of my New World; and I heartily 
wish you could bring it back again. . . . We shall be 
in Buffalo, please Heaven, on the 30th of April. If I 
don't find a letter from you in the care of the post- 
master at that place, I'll never write to you from 
England. But if I do find one, my right hand shall 
forget its cunning, before I forget to be your truthful 
and constant correspondent; not, dear Felton, because 
I promised it, nor because I have a natural tendency 
to correspond (which is far from being the case), nor 
because I am truly grateful to you for, and have been 
made truly proud by, that affectionate and elegant 

tribute which sent me, but because you are a 

man after my own heart, and I love you well. And 
for the love I bear you, and the pleasure with which I 
shall always think of you, and the glow I shall feel 
when I see your handwriting in my own home, I hereby 
enter into a solemn league and covenant to write as 

233 



234 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

many letters to you as you write to me, at least. 
' Amen." 

And the covenant was kept. In the whole of Dickens's 
published leters there are none so charming, so redolent of 
the spirit of the man himself as those written to Prof. 
Felton. Several of them contain diverting references to 
oysters. It seems to have been a joke which the pair kept 
to themselves, more's the pity. It evidently arose out of 
some jovialities during their first stay together in New 
York. For Felton was a jovial soul. 

Their correspondence was regular after Dickens's return 
to England. He was untiring in pressing Felton to cross 
the Atlantic, and all his letters are in the same hearty 
strain. "Heavens ! if you were but here at this minute ! . . . 
With what a shout I would clap you down into the easiest 
chair, my genial Felton, if you could but appear, and order 
you a pair of slippers instantly !" Or, "On the 4th of April 
I am going to preside at a public dinner for the benefit 
of the printers ; and if you were a guest at that table, 
wouldn't I smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever I 
rapped the well-beloved back of Washington Irving at the 
City Hotel in New York." Or again : "Yesterday morning, 
New Year's Day . . . the postman came to the door with 
a knock, for which I denounced him from my heart. Seeing 
your hand upon the cover of a letter which he brought, I 
immediately blessed him, presented him with a glass of 
whiskey, inquired after his family (they are all well) and 
opened the dispatch with a moist and oystery twinkle in my 
eye. And on the very day from which the new year dates, 
I read your New Year congratulations as punctually as if 
you lived in the same house ! Why don't you ! . . . Count- 
less happy years to you and yours, my dear Felton, and 
some instalment of them, however slight, in England, in the 
loving company of The Proscribed One. Oh, breathe not 
his name !" 

"A few days of unalloyed enjoyment were given to the 
visit of his excellent American friend Felton." It is dis- 
appointing that this should be Forster's only reference to 
Felton's long anticipated visit to England. Nor can I find 
any reference elsewhere. But it is not difficult to picture 



PROFESSOR FELTON 235 

the meeting of the friends, the hearty smite upon the 
shoulder, the "gleaming spectacles"; or to hear in imagina- 
tion their hearty laughter as they recalled that joke about 
the oysters (we may be sure they had an oyster feast to- 
gether). We can picture Dickens's "unalloyed enjoyment" 
as he welcomed his guest, and showed him the sights of 
London; took him to the George and Vulture, or to the 
Belle Sauvage, or perhaps to the Spaniards and Jack 
Straw's. It was the last time they met, though their cor- 
respondences continued uninterruptedly until Felton's death 
in 1862. 



CHAPTER XLII 

AMERICAN FRIENDS (continued) HOLMES, LOWELL, AND 

OTHERS 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was only thirty-three years old 
when Dickens first met him in 1842, and he had to live 
another twenty years before achieving fame as the Autocrat. 
To the world at large he was quite unknown, but in Boston, 
where, in the previous year, he had started in general prac- 
tice as a doctor, he moved in the best cultured circles, and 
was sufficiently prominent in the life of the city to be 
selected one of the vice-presidents of the dinner which was 
given in Boz's honour. One of the events of that evening 
was the singing of a song which Holmes had written specially 
for the occasion. He sang it himself, too, to the tune of 
"Gramachree." 

During this first visit no friendship was formed, which 
is not surprising, for Holmes being an unknown man it was 
hardly likely he would be brought into personal touch with 
Dickens. But when Dickens returned to America twenty- 
five years later Holmes was famous, and well-beloved by 
the English-speaking peoples, and was one of America's 
chief citizens whom the novelist desired to know. He was 
one of the first to bid the traveller welcome, and whenever 
Dickens was in Boston, Dolby tells us, the Autocrat's 
society was a great pleasure to him. It is a pity they had 
not come to know each other long before, for they must 
have been kindred souls. 

James Russell Lowell was still younger than Holmes, but 
in 1842 he already had to his credit a volume of poems 
which had found considerable favour. He was one of the 
committee which waited upon Dickens to invite him to the 
Boston dinner, but they did not become personally intimate 
until the novelist's second visit. Then they saw a great deal 

236 



HOLMES, LOWELL, AND OTHERS 237 

of each other, and formed a strong mutual regard. In 
1869 Dickens welcomed Lowell's daughter to Gadshill with 
delight, and made her stay there with James T. Fields and 
his wife memorable. 

There were other American friends whom Dickens liked 
well, with whom he was very friendly, who showed him many 
kindnesses, but with whom there was nothing of that in- 
timacy that existed with Irving, Longfellow, and Felton. 
Emerson was one of these, as might be supposed, and 
Dickens was glad to welcome him when he came to England. 
George William Childs was another. There were also 
George Bancroft ("a famous man, a straightforward, 
manly, earnest heart") ; Washington Allston ("a fine speci- 
men of a glorious old genius") ; William Henry Channing 
("just the man he ought to be") ; John Lathrop Motley 
(who the late Frederick Locker-Lampson tells us was very 
fond of Dickens) ; Richard Henry Dana ("a very nice 
fellow") ; Henry Clay ("a most charming fellow") ; Fitz- 
Greene Halleck ("a merry little man") ; David Colden ("I 
am deeply in love with his wife. Indeed, we have received 
the greatest and most earnest and zealous kindness from the 
whole family, and quite love them all") ; William Cullen 
Bryant ("sad and very reserved") ; W. H. Prescott (for 
whose work Dickens had a great admiration: "I wrote to 
Prescott about his book, with which I was perfectly charmed. 
I think his descriptions masterly, his style brilliant, his 
purpose manly and gallant always") ; Bayard Taylor 
(whose visits to Gadshill in 1869 were a special enjoyment 
to the novelist) ; and Charles Eliot Norton. 

There remain James T. Fields and his wife, and his part- 
ner, James R. Osgood, for whom a separate chapter is 
reserved. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

AMERICAN FRIENDS (continued) MR. AND MRS. JAMES T. 

FIELDS 

There never was a period in all his life when Dickens so 
needed friendship as during that tragic American tour of 
1867-8, and he was indeed happy in the friendship of Mr. 
and Mrs. James T. Fields. They looked after him as though 
he were their only son, and again and again he speaks in 
his letters home of their unceasing kindness. 

Dickens and Fields became acquainted in the way of 
business, for Fields was a partner in the famous publishing 
house of Ticknor and Fields. From his earliest days, how- 
ever, Fields had been one of the novelist's most enthusiastic 
admirers, and he has recorded something of the enthusiasm 
he felt in his book, "Yesterdays with Authors." 

They first met in London in 1859, though they had had 
business dealings some time prior to that date. Their ac- 
quaintance quickly ripened into a strong friendship as a 
result of personal intercourse. Fields spent a happy day 
at Gadshill, and within a month we find Dickens concluding 
a letter thus: "Believe me always (and here I for ever 
renounce 'Mr.' as having anything whatever to do with our 
communications, and as being a mere preposterous inter- 
loper), Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens." Fields was 
possessed by the desire that Dickens should read in America, 
and during this visit he urged it upon the novelist, but the 
Civil War came in 1860, and the idea had to be abandoned 
for years. But Fields never allowed the matter to drop, 
and his ambition was realised in 1867. And when at last 
Dickens crossed the Atlantic, Fields and his wife laid them- 
selves out to make his stay in the land of the Stars and 
Stripes as happy and as comfortable as it could be made. 
Over and over again Dolby tells us how devoted the pair 

238 



MR. AND MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS 239 

were to the novelist, and Dickens himself bears frequent 
testimony. In almost every one of his letters home, he told 
of their devotion to him: "Mrs. Fields is more delightful 
than ever, and Fields more hospitable. My room is always 
radiant with brilliant flowers of their sending." Again: 
"They are the most devoted of friends, and never in the 
way, and never out of it." 

Of course, Fields entered into the fun of the great Walk- 
ing Match. In the ' articles drawn up by the "Gad's Hill 
Gasper," he is described as "James T. Fields, known in 
sporting circles as Massachusetts Jemmy," and he is named 
as one of the "umpires, starters, and declarers of victory." 
Dolby was beaten because he allowed Osgood to get too far 
away from him, supposing that he had poor staying power. 
"My supposition," he says, "probably would have been con- 
firmed had not Mrs. Fields arrived on the scene in her car- 
riage, and turning round, accompanied Osgood the rest of 
the walk, plying him the whole time with bread soaked in 
brandy! We all, with the exception of Osgood, of course, 
felt that she showed great favouritism in this respect, but 
she frankly admitted that she would have done the same by 
me if she had met me first. . . ." 

In a letter to his daughter, Dickens described the dinner 
which followed: 

"As she (Mrs. Fields) had done so much for me in 
the way of flowers, I thought I would show her a sight 
in that line at the dinner. You never saw anything 
like it. Two immense crowns ; the base of the choicest 
exotics ; and the loops oval masses of violets. In the 
centre of the table an immense basket, overflowing with 
bell-mouthed lilies ; all round the table a bright green 
border of wreathed creeper, with clustering roses at 
intervals; a rose for every button-hole, and a bouquet 
for every lady." 

Says Fields, "David Copperfield, Hyperion, Hosea Biglow, 
the Autocrat, and the Bad Boy were present, and there was 
no need for set speeches. The ladies present, being all 
daughters of America, smiled upon the champion, and we 
had a great good time." Let us recall an incident of the 



240 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

dinner, and judge whether he is right in saying that the 
company had a great good time. Dickens had described 
the plan he adopted when preparing a speech, and he pro- 
ceeded to give a practical illustration. They were to have 
a mimic election, and the candidates were to be Dolby and 
Biglow. Dickens was to voice the claims of the former, and 
Fields those of the latter. Dolby shall tell the rest: 

"In his endeavour to establish my claims as a fit and 
proper person to represent the borough, Mr. Dickens 
instanced the fact that I had no hair on the top of 
my head, whereas the rival candidate, being plentifully 
supplied with that article, could not be considered a 
desirable person to represent any borough in the House 
of Commons. After he had finished his speech, which 
was of the most ludicrous description, Fields commenced 
his, but was never allowed to finish it, for he was con- 
tinually interrupted by Mr. Dickens in a variety of 
voices and cries, such as 'Down with the hairy aris- 
tocracy !' 'Up with the chap with the shiny top !' etc. ; 
the whole resulting in such an uproar that poor Fields 
had no chance. The outbursts of laughter were so loud 
and continuous, and the side-splitting pain so great in 
consequence, that it was with sheer exhaustion that we 
all gave up and retired for the night." 

Such events as this, however, were but glimpses of the 
sun through the clouds, for throughout the tour Dickens 
was labouring against the utmost physical distress. All the 
time Fields and his wife were kindness personified. "The 
Fields were all and everything to him in his illness," says 
Dolby, "and the affectionate attention of Mrs. Fields, who, 
as usual, had decorated his rooms with flowers, and the 
genial society of Fields did much to make him forget his 
sufferings." To the end of his life he remembered all this 
with gratitude. The affection between the two men deep- 
ened, and when at last Boz set his face homewards, Fields 
was remembered among his best-loved friends. 

In May 1869 Fields and his wife came to England, and 
needless to say, Dickens welcomed them with the utmost 
heartiness. Fields has told the story of that visit fully. 



MR. AND MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS 241 

Dickens showed him round London as well as round the 
beauty spots of Kent, and at his visitor's special request, 
mounted a staircase at Furnival's Inn, which he had not 
mounted for very many years, in order to show him the 
very room in which the first page of Pickwick was written. 
They visited some of the slums, and haunts of crime, and 
saw together the opium den which was afterwards literally 
described in Edwin Drood. They went over the General 
Post Office ; they explored the Temple, Dickens taking his 
friend to Pip's room; they rambled through the quaint old 
city of Rochester, through the Cobham Woods to Cobham 
Park, and on to the Leather Bottle ; and one glorious day the 
whole house-party drove over to Canterbury and trod the 
streets that little David Copperfield so often trod. On 
another day, Cooling was their destination ; and yet another 
favourite walk was to Kit's Coty House. After a tour on 
the continent, the visitors again spent some pleasant days 
at Gadshill, and then they sailed for home, never again to 
see him whom they loved so truly. 

With James R. Osgood and with Ticknor, Fields's part- 
ners, Dickens was on the best of terms, but neither has a 
claim to be classed with Fields among his intimate friends. 
To Osgood, however, he was particularly indebted for many 
kindness during the Reading Tour, and he acknowledges this 
in several of his letters. 



CHAPTER XLIV 

RICHAED MONCKTON MELNES 

Dickens's return from America in June 1842 "was the 
occasion of unbounded enjoyment," says Forster. "A 
Greenwich dinner in which several friends (Talfourd, Milnes, 
Procter, Maclise, Stanfield, Marryat, Barnham, Hood, and 
Cruikshank among them) took part, and other immediate 
gatherings followed." With all but one of these friends we 
have already dealt. Let us speak of him now. 

The Marquis of Crewe suggests to me that his father 
was one of a group of "outer acquaintances" of Dickens's. 
He says : "Both he and my mother were on terms of 
pleasant and intimate acquaintanceship with Dickens, and 
I have a few letters and notes from him to both. But I do 
not think that the} 7 met regularly or often, and I am pretty 
sure that Dickens never stayed at Fryston, and that my 
father was never a guest at Gadshill." It is true that 
Milnes was not a member of the innermost Dickens circle; 
but there was more than one Dickens circle. We might 
say there Avere three circles — innermost, inner, and outer, 
and then we might place Milnes in the second of these. At 
one time, when both were in their heyday, they certainly 
did meet frequently. Forster couples him with Marryat 
as a welcome companion in the very early days, and later, 
dealing with the period 1848-51, he speaks of Milnes as 
"familiar with Dickens over all the period since, and still 
more prominent in Tavistock House days, when, with Lady 
Houghton, he brought fresh claims to my friend's admira- 
tion and regard." So early as 1840 they were sufficiently 
intimate for Dickens to address his letters with the familiar 
"My dear Milnes." 

It was at about this time that Dickens received the in- 
evitable invitation to breakfast (Carlyle, it will be remem- 
bered, said that if Christ were to come on earth Milnes 

242 



RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 243 

would ask Him to breakfast), and his reply was: "I never 
went out to breakfast in my life, and am afraid to try 
how one feels under the circumstances ; but I will be with 
you next Friday at eleven o'clock for purposes of small 
talk — that being the day which did itself the honour of 
presenting me to the world twenty-eight years ago." But 
at some subsequent date unrecorded he summoned up his 
courage, for in 1862 we find him writing: "Many thanks. 
But I have been out to breakfast only twice in my life — 
both times ages ago — once with Rogers, and once with you 
in Pall Mall. Moreover, I read Copper-field on Thursday 
night. And when I do that, I am in lavender on a shelf 
all day." 

But let us refer again to the first of these two letters. 
Milnes had evidently hinted at some humorous notion that 
he had, for Dickens's letter continues: 

"I really would immortalise myself, if I were you, by 
presenting that national anthem of the Seven Dials. 
It is a capital notion. Perhaps you have heard that 
song in the streets about the Queen's marriage, whereof 
the burden is (Her Majesty being supposed to sing it) : 

" 'So let 'em say whate'er they may, 
Or do whate'er they can; 
Prince Halbert he vill allvays be 
My own dear Fancy Man.' 

"There is another prose composition in the form of 
a catechism. This is performed by two gentlemen, and 
opens thus: 

"Question. — Veil, Mr. Bull, Sir, what is your private 
opinions vith respectin' to German sassages — fresh and 
imported, Sir, from Saxe Humbug and Go-to-her? 

"Answer (in a melancholy growl). — My opinion is, 
Sir, as they comes very dear. 

"Question. — Supposin', Mr. Bull, as these here 
foreign sassages wos to cost the country a matter of 
thirty thousand pound per annewum, who do } ? ou think 
ought to spend that 'ere wast and enormous expenditer? 

"Answer. — Them as awails theirselves o' the sassages 
aforesaid. (A laugh in the crowd.) 



244 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"Question. — Then, in your opinion, Mr. Bull, they're 
a dear commodity? 

"Answer. — I consider, Sir, as they would be uncom- 
mon dear at any price, and what I says is, let us revert 
to the good wholesome home-made dairy-fed native sas- 
sages — the Cambridge sassages of right down English 
manafacter — the Protestant sassages as our forefathers 
and Marshal Blucher fought and bled for. (Great ap- 
plause.) 

"(Both sing) : 

"Oh didn't the Prince look as sweet as new honey 
Ven Melbourne said, Johnny should get the full money; 
And isn't his missis with Joe rayther vild, 
Now they're almost too proud to vet-nurse the child." 

Dickens had a very high regard for Milnes as a literary 
man, as a friend of literary men, as an enlightened and 
Liberal politician, as a champion of the oppressed, and as 
a man of very exceptional charm. Here is an estimate of 
this fine man taken from a mere book of reference: "A 
Maecenas of poets, he got Lord Tennyson the laureateship, 
soothed the dying hours of poor David Gray, and was one 
of the first to recognise Mr. Swinburne's genius. . . . Be- 
sides this, he was a traveller, a philanthropist, an unrivalled 
after-dinner speaker, and Rogers's successor in the art of 
breakfast-giving. . . . He championed oppressed nationali- 
ties, liberty of conscience, fugitive slaves, the rights of 
women; and carried a bill for establishing reformatories." 
Add to this his culture and his great social charm, and it 
is very easy to understand that he possessed a very strong 
attraction for Dickens. His liberal views, we may be sure, 
appealed to Dickens, and his never-failing readiness to help 
literature and literary men could not but win him the re- 
gard of a man who was so jealous of the dignity and good 
name of his profession. The two men had much in common, 
and their friendship was very natural. Milnes had the 
same high opinion of Dickens's gifts that nearly all the world 
had, and he also came under the magic spell of the man's per- 
sonality. Dickens, too, appreciated Milnes the poet. The 
latter sent him a copy of his "Palm Leaves" in 1844, and 
here is his acknowledgment: 



RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 245 

"I have not acknowledged the receipt of your highly 
esteemed present because I think it a poor compliment 
to thank an author for his book without having first 
read it. I am now in a condition to thank you, and 
honestly to assure you that the elegance, tenderness, 
and thoughtful fancy of the 'Palm Leaves' have greatly 
charmed me, and have made an impression on me such 
as I believe you would yourself desire and would be 
satisfied with — fully." 

In 1869 Milnes (then, of course, Lord Houghton) spoke 
at the Liverpool banquet to Dickens. He expressed regret 
that Dickens abstained from public life, and (in Forster's 
words) "half reproached him for alleged unkindly senti- 
ments to the House of Lords." Dickens waxed rather 
vehement in denying the latter charge, and referring to the 
number of members of the upper House whom he counted 
personal friends, said: "Taking these circumstances into 
consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend's 
accusation." And he added: "When I asked him, on his 
sitting down, what amazing devil possessed him to make 
this charge, he replied that he had never forgotten the days 
of Lord Verisopht. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I under- 
stood it all. Because it is a remarkable fact that in the 
days when that depreciative and profoundly unnatural char- 
acter was invented there was no Lord Houghton in the 
House of Lords. And there was in the House of Commons 
a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton 
Milnes." 

Then he took up the other charge, prefacing his reply 
with "here I am more serious." The reply was that well- 
known passage in which he declared his life-long determina- 
tion that literature should be his sole profession by which 
he would stand or fall. Commenting on this, Forster says: 
"Here, however, he probably failed to see the entire meaning 
of Lord Houghton's regret, which would seem to have been 
meant to say in more polite form, that to have taken some 
part in public affairs might have shown him the difficulty 
in a free state of providing remedies very swiftly for evils 
of long grow r th." That difficulty Dickens never seems fully 
to have realised. 



246 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

But this little difference of opinion made no difference to 
their friendship, and in another public speech — in his 
Literary Fund address in 1866 — Lord Houghton made a 
very appreciative reference to Dickens, who acknowledged 
it: "Many thanks for your kindness in sending me the 
printed notes of your Literary Fund address, and many 
more for your reference to myself. It is a touching and 
acceptable reminder to me that a good many years have 
gone by since we first knew each other." 

With Lady Houghton, too, Dickens was on pleasant terms 
of friendship, and I am able to quote one letter to her. It 
is dated July 18, 1862: 

"I think the photograph of your charming labour of 
love from the Cricket comes out exceedingly well: 
though it does not render full justice to the delicacy 
and beauty of your design. It is highly interesting 
to me to have it, and I thank you for it heartily. 

"I am glad you like Copperfield. It is far more in- 
teresting to me than any of the other Readings, and I 
am half ashamed to confess — even to you — what a 
tenderness I have for it." 

Lord Houghton's biographer 1 tells us that there was a 
very old tie uniting the family at Fryson with the author 
of Pickwick. "When Lady Houghton," he says, "was a 
girl at Crewe, the person who filled the responsible office of 
housekeeper at Crewe Hall was a Mrs. Dickens, the grand- 
mother of Charles." Lady Houghton, he adds, used to say 
that when she was a child the greatest treat that could be 
given to herself and her brother and sister was an afternoon 
in the housekeeper's room, "for Mrs. Dickens was an in- 
imitable story-teller, and she loved to have the children 
round her, and to beguile them, not only with fairy tales, 
but with reminiscences of her own and stories from the pages 
of history. It was natural, therefore, that when, after her 
marriage, Lady Houghton became personally acquainted 
with Charles Dickens she should feel a peculiar interest in 
him. Not very long before Dickens's death a dinner was 
» T. Wemyss Reid. 



RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 247 

arranged at Lady Houghton's town house chiefly for the 
purpose of enabling the Prince of Wales and the King of 
the Belgians to make the acquaintance of the great writer." 

When Dickens died, Lord Houghton wrote to his son, 
the present Marquis of Crewe: "I fear you never saw 
Charles Dickens. When he dined with us to meet the Prince 
of Wales he pressed us to visit Gadshill any day, and we 
might have been there at the time of seizure. He has died 
happily in the zenith of his fame." But the son had met 
Dickens, for he writes to me: "I can well remember seeing 
the great man at Upper Brook Street, where my father then 
lived, my sister and I having come down after dinner. But 
no special point attaches to the recollection, though his 
appearance is vividly clear to my mind." 

Proof that Lord Houghton was an intimate friend of 
Dickens's is provided by the fact that it was through him 
that Dean Stanley made the offer of a grave in Westminster 
Abbey. 



CHAPTER XLV 

W. J. FOX AND THE REV. WILLIAM HARNESS 

The private reading of The Chimes at Forster's chambers 
in December 1844, to which several references have been 
made, was of far-reaching influence in Dickens's life. It 
was the forerunner of the historic readings with which he 
took this country and America by storm in the last dozen 
years of his life, and which undoubtedly cut short that life. 
And out of it also arose those amateur theatricals which be- 
came so famous. There remain three who were present on 
that occasion to whom no reference has yet been made. Dyce 
was present as Forster's friend. By virtue of that friend- 
ship he was, of course, well acquainted with Dickens, but 
he was never a member of the Dickens circle, and calls for 
no more mention here. William Johnson Fox also was more 
Forster's friend that Dickens's, and never penetrated be- 
yond the outer Dickens circle. I doubt if his personality 
was such as to appeal very much to Dickens, but, on the 
other hand, his ardent advocacy of every sort of reform that 
had Dickens's passionate sympathy could not but win him 
the esteem of the novelist. Intellectually — or rather, 
politically — they had almost everything in common. Fox, 
when Dickens first knew him, was a Unitarian minister, and 
we know that in those early days the novelist was much 
drawn to the Unitarian creed. He was, next to Cobden and 
Bright, perhaps the greatest of the anti-Corn Law orators, 
and Dickens felt very strongly on that question. But more 
important than that in Dickens's eyes, we may be sure, was 
Fox's advocacy of popular education. There was no reform 
which Dickens more earnestly and consistently urged all his 
life, and Fox was the first man to introduce a Bill into 
Parliament to bring it about. 

But though on political questions the two men were abso- 

248 



W. J. FOX AND REV. W. HARNESS 249 

lutely at one, they had nothing else in common. Why, then, 
was Fox invited to the Lincoln's Inn reading? Mainly, in 
all probability, because he was one of the most powerful 
journalistic advocates of social reform, and in The Chimes 
Dickens was hoping to strike a great blow for the poor. 
Carlyle, Jerrold, Maclise, and Harness were invited for quite 
different reasons. 

Fox's chief association with Dickens was in connection 
with the "Daily News," on the staff of which he was engaged 
as a leader-writer. We are told that the appointment was 
due to Forster's influence with Dickens, but we may be sure 
that the novelist was glad to secure the services of so able 
a journalist, whose views were so completely in sympathy 
with the avowed policy of the paper. Fox's daughter says : 
"The paper promised to be as Radical as even Mr. Fox could 
desire, Dickens's enlightened and enthusiastic views as to 
elevating the character of the press, as to the crying need 
of popular education, and for generally raising the status 
of the poor; and for reform of various social anomalies, 
were completely in sympathy with those long-advocated by 
Mr. Fox." 

That this was the case is proved by a note of Fox's to 
Miss Eliza Flower: "Forster's position does not show him 
off well. It brings out his worst points. Dickens and I are 
regularly against him on almost everything involving a dif- 
ference of opinion." How autocratic Dickens was as editor 
even in those days is shown by his note to Fox, dated 
January 21, 1846, in which he says: "Your leader most 
excellent. I made bold to take out Bright's name, for rea- 
sons I hinted at the other day, and which I think have 
validity. He is unscrupulous and indiscreet, Cobden never 
so." Which reveals a curious prejudice which history does 
not justify. 

When Dickens left the "Daily News," Fox remained, 
working under Forster, but he had practically no association 
with the novelist thenceforth. 

The Rev. William Harness, who is depicted in tears in 
Maclise's drawing, was almost an idolator where Dickens 
was concerned, and he and his sister were sincerely esteemed 
by the novelist. He was a simple sociable soul, and Forster 
speaks of occasional days with him and his sister and of 



250 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"social entertainments" with him, but he was twenty-two 
years older than Dickens, and a staid London clergyman, 
with views that were none too broad, and there could not 
be any deep sympathy between the two. I think the Rev. 
A. G. L'Estrange sums up their relations very accurately 
in his "Literary Life of the Rev. William Harness." 

"Dickens," he says, "was a very kind friend to Mr. 
Harness ; he regarded him as one of the literary men 
of the past, and occasionally asked his opinion and 
sent him little presents, which were of course gratify- 
ing. Mr. Harness fully appreciated the great novelist 
and his works, and was supremely happy whenever he 
could persuade 'Charles' to be a guest at his table. 
When Dickens was giving readings in his later years 
he told Mr. Harness that he would always have a chair 
placed for him close to the platform ; but Mr. Harness 
never accepted the kind offer, although he attended 
all his recitations, and on these appointed nights it was 
impossible to persuade him to accept any invitations." 

On the one side, an enthusiastic admiration and worship; 
on the other, a genuine respect for a much older man who 
had achieved some distinction in the literary world before 
Pickwick was thought of: that is all. How could there be 
a very close sympathy between Dickens and a man who 
held the views that "people should be educated according 
to their stations" ! "It is certainly just and right," says 
the Rev. William Harness, "kind to the individual and ad- 
vantageous to the public, that every man endowed with 
extraordinary talents such as Sir Robert Arkwright and 
Professor Lee should, however humble his circumstances, be 
afforded the educational means of raising himself above it. 
To effect this, if he be imbued with sound Christian prin- 
ciples as his guide, reading and writing — the ability of col- 
lecting the ideas of others and imparting his own — are 
quite sufficient." 

We still meet with this point of view to-day: it was com- 
moner sixty or seventy years ago, but Dickens never had 
any patience with it, and he could not have been in much 
sympathy with a man who could think thus. 



W. J. FOX AND REV. W. HARNESS 251 

The Rev. A. G. L'Estrange tells us that notes frequently 
passed between Dickens and Harness, but that they were 
unimportant, "though always neatly worded"; and he adds 
that Dickens was too fully engaged to write long letters, 
"even had he not been a man of too active a character to 
spend his time in that way." Which makes curious reading 
to those who know what a voluminous letter-writer the 
novelist was ! The truth is that Harness was not the man 
to whom Dickens could "let himself go" in any sense. He 
had the novelist's esteem, but there never existed anything 
like an intimacy, 



CHAPTER XLVI 

MR. AND MRS. WATSON 

Dickens spent the summer of 1846 in Switzerland, and 
at Lausanne formed some of the most appreciated friend- 
ships of his life. Chiefest among these was that with the 
Hon. R. and Mrs. Watson. It struck a note of earnestness 
and affection that was quite remarkable even for him. For 
both Mr. and Mrs. Watson he formed an extraordinary 
regard. "I loved him as my heart," he wrote to Charles 
Knight when Watson died, "I cannot think of him without 
tears." A few years later he wrote to Mrs. Watson: "I 
send you my sincere love, I am always truthful to the dear 
old days and the memory of one of the dearest friends I 
ever loved." And of Mrs. Watson he wrote to Mary Boyle 
in 1858: "You know what an affection I have for Mirs. 
Watson, and how happy it made me to see her again." 

During that summer of 1846 they had many happy days 
together, seeing all the sights, and the memory of those 
days lasted with Dickens to the end of his life. 

His letters to Mrs. Watson (her husband died in 1852) 
were frequent and lengthy thenceforth, and in almost all 
of them we find some winsome reference to "the tender grace 
of a day that is dead." It was indeed, as Mrs. Watson's 
daughter has said, "a most remarkable friendship" that 
sprang up, and after Watson had gone, it was maintained 
in all its earnestness with the widow. 

Dickens's first visit to Rockingham Castle, the Northamp- 
tonshire home of the Watsons, was paid at the end of 1849. 
During that visit he wrote an amusing letter to Forster : 

"Picture to yourself, my dear F., a large old- 
fashioned castle, approached by an ancient keep, port- 
cullis, etc., etc., filled with company, waited on by six- 

252 



MR. AND MRS. WATSON 253 

and-twenty servants; the slops (and wine-glasses) con- 
tinually being emptied; 1 and my clothes (with myself 
in them) always being carried off to all sorts of places ; 
and you will have a faint idea of the mansion in which 
I am at present staying. I should have written to you 
yesterday, but for having had a very busy day. Among 
the guests is a Miss B., 2 sister of the Honourable Miss 
B. (of Salem, Mass.) whom we once met at the house 
of our distinguished literary countryman, Colonel 
Landor. This lady is renowned as an amateur actress, 
so last night we got up in the great hall some scenes 
from the 'School for Scandal' ; the scene with the 
lunatic on the wall, from the Nicholas Nickleby of 
Major-General the Hon. C. Dickens (Richmond, Va.) ; 
some conjuring; and then finished off with country 
dances ; of which we had two admirably good ones, 
quite new to me, though really old. Getting the words, 
and making preparations occupied (as you may be- 
lieve) the whole day, and it was three o'clock before 
I got to bed. It was an excellent entertainment, and 
we were all uncommonly merry. ... Of all the coun- 
try houses and estates I have yet seen in England, I 
think this is by far the best. Everything undertaken 
eventuates in a most magnificent hospitality. . . . At 
a future time it will be my duty to report on the 
turnips, mangel- wurzels, ploughs, and live-stock; and 
for the present I will only say that I regard it as 
fortunate for the neighbouring community that this 
patrimony should have fallen to my spirited and en- 
lightened host. Every one has profited by it, and the 
labouring people in especial are thoroughly well cared 
for and looked after. To see all the household, headed 
by an enormously fat housekeeper, occupying the back 
benches last night, laughing and applauding without 
any restraint; and to see a blushing, sleek-headed foot- 
man produce, for the watch-trick, a silver watch of 
the most portentous dimensions, amidst the rapturous 

* The letter was written in the character of an American visitor to England, 
in parody of a book recently published. See Miscellaneous Papers: "An 
American in Europe." 
- Miss Mary Boyle. 



254 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

delight of his brethren and sisterhood; was a very 
pleasant spectacle, even to a conscientious republican 
like yourself or me. . . ." 

Forster says: "Dickens, during the too brief time his 
excellent friend was spared to him, often repeated his visits 
to Rockingham, always a surpassing enjoyment; and in the 
winter of 1850 he accomplished there, with help of the coun- 
try carpenter, 'a very elegant little theatre,' of which he 
constituted himself manager." And he adds that after the 
performance Dickens took part in a country dance, which 
lasted far into the morning, travelled 120 miles to London 
the next day, and dined with the Prime Minister in the 
evening. F. G. Kitton, in "The Dickens Country," also says 
that this performance took place in 1850, but as a matter 
of fact it was in January 1851. The pieces played were 
"Used Up" and "Animal Magnetism," and for the latter 
Dickens wrote a "tag" for the occasion, of which I quote 
the concluding lines : 

"Stay yet again. Among us all I feel 
One subtle, all-pervading influence steal, 
Stirring one wish within our heart and head; 
Bright be the path our host and hostess tread! 
Blest be their children, happy be their race, 
Long may they live, this ancient hall to grace; 
Long bear of English virtues noble fruit — 
Green-hearted Rockingham ! strike deep thy root." 

At this time he was busy on Copperfield, which was to be 
dedicated to the Watsons. In July 1850 he had written: 
"Every one is cheering David on, and I hope to make your 
book a good one. I like it very much myself — thoroughly 
believe in it all, and go to the work every month with an 
energy of the finest description." The fact that he dedi- 
cated his "favourite child" to these friends is strongest pos- 
sible proof of the earnestness of the regard he had for 
them. 

The next book to Copperfield was Bleak House, and in 
this he immortalised Rockingham Castle as Chesney Wold. 
There is nothing speculative in this as there is with so many 
"Dickens-land" identifications. We have his own authority 
for it, for in a letter to Mrs. Watson, he wrote: "In some 
of the descriptions of Chesney Wold I have taken many bits, 




Rockingham Castle, Northamptonshire, the Home of the 
Hon. Mk. and Mrs. Richard Watson 





The Hon. Richard Watson 



The Hon. Mrs. Richard Watson 



MR. AND MRS. WATSON 255 

chiefly about trees and shadows, from observations made 
at Rockingham." 

In August 1852 Mr. Watson died, and Dickens was 
greatly distressed. He had been at Rockingham in the 
spring, and had been shocked by his friend's decline, but 
death was not anticipated, and when it came the novelist 
was pained as he rarely was by such an event. 

"I cannot bear," he wrote to the widow, "to be silent 
longer, though I know full well — no one better, I think, 
how your love for him, and your trust in God, and 
your love for your children will have come to the help 
of such a nature as yours, and whispered better things 
than any friendship can, however faithful and affec- 
tionate. 

"We held him so close in our hearts — all of us here 
— and have been so happy with him, and so used to 
say how good he was, and what a gentle, generous, 
noble spirit he had, and how he shone out among com- 
mon men as something so real and genuine, and full 
of every kind of worthiness, that it has often brought 
the tears into my eyes to talk of him; we have been 
so accustomed to do this when we looked forward to 
years of unchanged intercourse, that now, when every- 
thing but truth goes down into the dust, those recol- 
lections which make the sword so sharp pour balm into 
the wound. And if it be a consolation to us to know 
the virtues of his character, and the reasons that we 
had for loving him, O how much greater is your com- 
fort who were so devoted to him, and were the happiness 
of his life ! 

"May God, who has received into His rest through 
this affliction as good a man as ever I can know and 
love and mourn for on this earth, be good to you, 
dear friends, through these coming years ! May all 
those compassionate and hopeful lessons of the great 
Teacher who shed divine tears for the dead bring their 
full comfort to 3 r ou! I have no fear of that, my con- 
fidence is certainty. 



25G THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"If you should ever set up a record in the little 
church, I would try to word it myself, and God knows 
out of the fulness of my heart, if you should think 
it well. 

"My dear Friends, yours with the truest affection 
and sympathy." 

Mrs. Watson's daughter says that Dickens kept up his 
letter-writing to her mother "with the same bubbling over 
thoughts and rare good literature." So he did, until he 
himself went to join his well-loved friend; and every letter 
breathed the sincerity and depth of his friendship. 



CHAPTER XLVII 

WILLIAM HALDIMAND, MONS. DE CERJAT, AND THE 
BItOOKFIELDS 

The friendship with William Haldimand was, next to 
that with the Watsons, the most valued of those formed at 
Lausanne. Formerly a member of Parliament, he had left 
England and settled in Lausanne, where he had a fine seat 
just below Rosemont and where, as Forster says, "his char- 
acter and situation had made him quite the little sovereign 
of the place. Inevitably Dickens met him directly he ar- 
rived in the town, and was so heartily received and so 
pleasantly entertained that a great friendship sprang up. 
He paid a tribute to those happy days and pleasant friend- 
ships by dedicating The Battle of Life, published in that 
same year, to his English friends in Switzerland — "a dedi- 
cation," he wrote to Haldimand, "that is printed in 
illuminated capitals on my heart." Writing in November, 
he said: 

"I shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or 
four copies to distribute to those whose names will be 
found written in them, as soon as they can be made 
ready, and believe me, that there is no success or ap- 
proval in the great world beyond the Jura that will 
be more precious and delightful to me than the hope that 
I shall be remembered of an evening in the coming winter 
time, at one or two friends' I could mention near the 
Lake of Geneva. It runs with a spring tide that will 
always flow and never ebb through my memory; and 
nothing less than the waters of Lethe shall confuse the 
music of its running, until it loses itself in that great 
sea, for which all the currents of our life are desperately 
bent." 

257 



258 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

In the following April the novelist's fifth son was born, 
and Dickens paid further tribute to that Lausanne holiday 
by inviting Haldimand to become godfather. 

Meetings between the friends were of course rare — in- 
deed, as far as I can find, they never did actually meet 
after 1847. 

It should be added that M. de Cerjat and his wife — 
"clever and agreeable both far beyond the ordinary," says 
Forster — took part in most of the happy excursions at 
Lausanne, and after Dickens's return to England, de Cerjat 
began a custom of writing Dickens a long letter every 
Christmas. Practically without a break this custom was 
continued until de Cerjat's death in 1869, Dickens reply- 
ing regularly. Most, if not all, of the novelist's letters are 
preserved, and they prove the depth of the friendship that 
he entertained for de Cerjat; they are among the longest 
and most charming of all his letters, and certainly are the 
most "newsy." I can find no record of it anywhere, but 
the following sentence in the last letter of the series, written 
in January 1869, certainly suggests that de Cerjat had 
visited England and been a guest at Gadshill: "You 
wouldn't recognise Gadshill now; I have so changed it and 
bought land about it." Certain it is that the friends met 
in 1853, for Dickens, in a letter from Milan, in October 
of that year, records that "Cerjat accompanied us on a 
miserably wet morning, in a heavy rain, down the lake." 

There was a lesser friendship of which the seed was sown 
at Lausanne. Henry Hallam (with whom Dickens was 
acquainted) came on a visit to Haldimand. Writing to 
Forster about the visit, Dickens said : "Heavens ! how 
Hallam did talk yesterday ! I don't think I ever saw him 
so trenmendous. Very good-natured and pleasant, in his 
way, but Good Heavens ! how he did talk. That famous day 
you and I remember was nothing to it. His son was with 
him, and his daughter (who has an impediment in her 
speech, as if nature were determined to balance that faculty 
in the family), and his niece, a pretty woman, the wife of 
a clergyman and a friend of Thackeray's. It strikes me 
that she must be 'the little woman' he proposed to take us 
to drink tea with, once, in Golden Square. Don't you re- 
member? His great favourite? She is quite a charming 



MONS. DE CERJAT 259 

person, anyhow." The great favourite of Thackeray's was 
Mrs. Brookfield, wife of the Rev. W. H. Brookfield. The 
Editors of Dickens's Letters declare that the Rev. W. H. 
and Mrs. Brookfield were held in high estimation by the 
novelist. We may accept that readily enough, but I very 
strongly doubt if Brookfield was ever a friend. They were 
fairly well acquainted — sufficiently well for Dickens to seek 
Brookfield's advice in the choice of a tutor for one of his 
sons — but I cannot imagine what they could have had in 
common, save certain mutual friendships — with the Procters 
in particular. There was a consciousness of intellectual 
superiority about Brookfield that could never have had any 
charm for Dickens. There seems to have been, too, a 
decidedly un-Dickensian vein of uncharitableness in him. 
It is not pleasing to observe the tone in which he speaks in 
some of his letters of some of his brother clerics; one he 
dismisses in charmingly Christian fashion as "the fool." 
There is an atmosphere of "superior person" about him all 
the time. 

Five years before his wife met the novelist, he had written 
to her: "I detest Humphrey's Clock more than I can tell 
you — I really find no genius in it. Except Swiveller and 
Mrs. Jarley I have not found a natural character in the 
story. (All the rest are badly selected — badly conceived — 
badly overdrawn.) Not one of them is a type of a class. 
And for structure, surely never was a story worse. No — 
Dickens won't do." So away had gone Dickens with a sweep 
of the arm, in the true Podsnappian manner! 

In 1845 he had written in his diary: "In the evening 
read Dickens's Chimes, as utter trash as was ever trodden 
underfoot." Two years later he wrote to his wife: "Dombey, 
if possible, viler than ever." In 1844 he attended the 
Artists' dinner, and wrote afterwards to his wife: "Dickens 
spoke shortly and well enough, but it had a very cut and 
dried air and rather pompous and shapely in its construc- 
tion and delivered in a rather sonorous deep voice. Not a 
jot of humour in it. He looks like Milnes, same height and 
shape, still longer hair, but not his demoniacal good humour 
of expression." So we see that whilst he regarded Dickens's 
work as trash, he also refused to acknowledge that the 
novelist was a gifted public speaker, in which I declare 



260 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

positively he stands absolutely alone. Brookfield was on 
most intimate terms with one of Dickens's best loved friends 
— R. W. Procter ; he was especially intimate with Thackeray, 
who was friendly with Dickens from the Pickwick days; 
yet Dickens's letter from Lausanne makes it very clear that 
they had not met up to 1846. When they did meet I do 
not know, but the first recorded meeting was at the Procters' 
in January 1859. It seems inconceivable that he should 
have allowed another twelve years to elapse before becom- 
ing personally acquainted with the novelist, but it would 
appear that that was the case. The only possible con- 
clusion to be drawn from all these facts is that Brookfield 
did not want to know Dickens. But indeed, he was out of 
sympathy with Dickens and things Dickensian. The two 
men did become fairly well acquainted, but never in the 
least degree intimate. As the authors of "Mrs. Brookfield 
and her Circle" put it, Brookfield always kept up with him 
"a pleasant if not particularly close friendship." To sum 
up, Brookfield was too "superior" for the Dickens Circle; 
Dickens could never have been at home in the Brookfield Set. 

With Mrs. Brookfield there was a pleasant friendliness. 
She was a woman of exceptional charm, with a far greater 
capacity for friendship than her husband possessed, and 
Dickens certainly was one of her greatest admirers. She 
gave him an unpleasant task once. She sent him the manu- 
script of a novel she had written, hoping that he might find 
it suitable for All the Year Round. He did not, and he 
"turned it down" in a letter that bears tribute alike to his 
friendship for her and to his consideration for the feelings 
of another. He told her why the book was unsuitable for 
publication in serial form, and then he offered some kindly 
and helpful criticism. 

He thought the book might be successful in two-volume 
form, supposing "the polishing I have hinted at (not a 
meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to good 
work and good art) to have been first thoroughly admin- 
istered," and he concluded: "Now, don't hate me, if you 
can help it. I can afford to be hated by some people, but 
I am not rich enough to put you in possession of that 
luxury." 

It was not fair of Mrs. Brookfield to give Dickens so 



THE BROOKFIELDS 261 

unpleasant a task. Adelaide Procter showed a much finer 
sense when she submitted her manuscripts to him under an 
assumed name so as not to embarrass him. But the task 
having to be performed it could not have been better done. 



CHAPTER XLVIII 

MARY BOYLE AND SIR WILLIAM BOXALL 

Out of the friendship with the Watsons sprang that with 
Mary Boyle. It was a peculiarly charming friendship. 
This vivacious young lady occupied almost a unique position 
in his regard; she seems to have stood in something of the 
relation of a daughter to the novelist, for Mr. Percy Fitz- 
gerald tells us that "every night she enjoyed the special 
privilege of receiving a kiss from the amiable Boz, wishing 
him 'good-night,' and coming up to him shyly like a child, 
with her candle in her hand." Her brilliance, vivacity, 
wittiness, and imperturbable good-nature endeared her to 
Dickens and to all the members of his family. She was one 
of the most frequent and welcome visitors both at Tavistock 
House and at Gadshill, and she was an idolator of the 
novelist, whom she first met in 1849. 

Her relative, Mrs. Watson, invited her to Rockingham 
Castle, and told her to look out at Euston for the Dickens 
family, who would be her fellow-travellers. She missed them 
at the station, but the guard brought Dickens to her car- 
riage, and "a hand was held out to help me from the 
carriage, a hand that for twenty successive years was ever 
ready to grasp mine in tender friendship or cordial com- 
panionship, and whose pressure still thrills my memory." 
She adds: "It was difficult for two such lovers of the 
Drama as Charles Dickens and myself to meet under the 
same roof without some dramatic plotting; and so, during 
that visit we trod for the first time the same boards to- 
gether in a hastily concocted scene from Nicholas NicTcleby 
— that in which the mad neighbour from the top of the 
garden wall makes a passionate declaration to Mrs. Nickleby. 
My shabby-genteel costume with the widow's cap of the 

262 



MARY BOYLE AND SIR W. BOXALL 263 

period attracted universal admiration from its appropriate 
fitness, while the amorous outbursts of my adorer were given 
in a manner worthy of the actor-author." 

So impressed was Dickens with her ability as an actress 
that in September 1850 he recommended to Lytton that 
she should be given a part in connection with the Guild of 
Literature and Art performances, but owing to a family 
bereavement she was unable to accept the invitation. 

By this time she was an intimate at Tavistock House. 
"The very sound of the name," she says, "is replete with 
memories of innumerable evenings passed in the most con- 
genial and delightful intercourse ; dinners where the guests 
vied with each other in brilliant conversation, whether in- 
tellectual, witty, or sparkling — evenings devoted to music 
or theatricals. First and foremost of that magic circle was 
the host himself, always 'one of us,' who invariably drew 
out what was best and most characteristic in others, who 
used the monosyllable 'we' much more frequently than that 
of 'I,' and who made use of his superiority to charm and 
quicken the society around him, but never to crush or over- 
power it with a sense of inferiority." 

Dickens's regard for this vivacious lady is very evident 
from the charming letters he wrote to her. As for instance: 

"It is all very well to protend to love me, as you do. 
Ah ! If you loved as I love, Mar3 r ! But when my 
breast is tortured by the perusal of such a letter as 
yours, Falkland, Falkland, madam, becomes my part 
in 'The Rivals,' and I play it with desperate earnest- 
ness. As thus: 

"Falkland (to Acres). Then you see her, sir, 
sometimes ? 

"Aches. See her! Odds beams and sparkles, yes. 
See her acting! Night after night. 

"Falkland (aside and furious). Death and the 
devil! Acting, and I not there! Pray, sir (with con- 
strained calmness), what does she act? 

"Acres. Odds, monthly nurses and babbies ! Sairey 
Gamp and Betsy Prig, 'which, wotever it is, my dear 
(mimicking), I likes it brought reg'lar and draw'd 
mild!' That's very like her. 



264 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"Falkland. Confusion! Perhaps, sir, perhaps she 
sometimes acts — ha ! ha ! perhaps she sometimes acts, 
I say — eh ! sir ? — a — ha, ha, ha ! a fairy ? ( With great 
bitterness.) 

"Acres. Odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes! 
You should hear her sing as a fairy. You should see 
her dance as a fairy. Tol de rol lol — la — lol — liddle 
diddle. (Sings and dances.) That's very like her. 

"Falkland. Misery ! while I, devoted to her image, 
can scarcely write a line now and then, or pensively 
read aloud to the people of Birmingham. (To him.) 
And they applaud her, no doubt they applaud her, 
sir. And she — I see her ! Curtsies and smiles ! And 
they — curses on them! they laugh and — ha, ha, ha! 
clap their hands — and say it's very good. Do they not 
say it's very good, sir? Tell me. Do they not? 

"Acres. Odds, thunderings and pealings, of course 
they do ! and the third fiddler, little Tweaks, of the 
country town, goes into fits. Ho, ho, ho, I can't bear 
it (mhnicking) ; take me out! Ha, ha, ha! O what 
a one she is ! She'll be the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, 
ha! That's very like her! 

"Falkland. Damnation ! Heartless Mary ! (Rushes 
out.) 

"Scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up 
into form of letters representing the following inscrip- 
tion: 

" When the praise thou meetest 
To thine ear is sweetest, 
Othen 

"Remember Joe. 
"(Curtain falls.)" 

Or again: "Enclosing a kiss, if you will have the kind- 
ness to return it when done with. I have just been reading 
my Christmas Carol in Yorkshire. I should have lost my 
heart to the beautiful young landlady of my hotel (age 
twenty-nine, dress, black frock and jacket, exquisitely 
braided) if it had not been safe in your possession. Many, 



MARY BOYLE AND SIR W. BOXALL 265 

many happy years to you!" And in another letter he 
writes: "You are among the few whom I most care for 
and best love." 

Mary Boyle was continually sending her idol some little 
token of her admiration and regard for him. He writes on 
December 28, 1860, for instance: "I cannot tell you how 
much I thank you for the beautiful cigar-case, and how 
seasonable, and friendly, and good, and warm-hearted it 
looked when I opened it at Gadshill. Besides which, it is 
a cigar-case, and will hold cigars; two crowning merits 
that I never yet knew to be possessed by any article claim- 
ing the same name. For all these reasons, but more than 
all because it comes from you, I love it, and send you 
eighteen hundred and sixty kisses, with one in for the new 
year." On November 17, 1861, he writes: "I am perfectly 
enraptured with the quilt. It is one of the most tasteful, 
lively, elegant things I have ever seen ; and I need not tell 
you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental 
sake, it is precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friend- 
ship and affectionate remembrance." And on January 6, 
1869, he writes : "I was more affected than you can easily 
believe by the sight of your gift lying on my dressing-table 
on the morning of the new year. . . . You may be sure I 
shall attach a special interest and value to the beautiful 
present, and shall wear it as a kind charm. God bless you, 
and may we carry the friendship through many coming 
years." 

When he was on his reading tours this worshipper of his 
contrived to send him a button-hole for almost every read- 
ing. Even when he was in America in 1867 she contrived 
to pay him this charming little attention, and we find him 
writing to Miss Hogarth from Boston: "I find by going 
off to the Cuba myself this morning I can send you the 
enclosed for Mary Boyle . . . whose usual flower for my 
button-hole was produced in the most extraordinary manner 
here last Monday night!" The "enclosed" was the follow- 
ing letter : "My dear Meery ; You can have no idea of the 
glow of pleasure and amazement with which I saw your 
remembrance of me lying on my dressing-table here last 
Monday night. . . . But you must go away four thousand 
miles, and have such a token conveyed to you, before you 



266 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

can quite appreciate the feeling of receiving it. Ten thou- 
sand loving thanks." 

When Dickens removed to Gadshill, Mary Boyle was there 
almost as frequently as she had been at Tavistock House. 
Many were the summer days passed there, she says: "In 
the afternoon he sought relaxation and then the other in- 
mates of the house came in for their share of his enviable 
society, and the basket carriage was brought to the door 
drawn by the 'sober Newman Noggs,' the harness adorned 
with musical bells which his friend Mr. Lehmann had 
brought him from Norway, and we would take long drives 
all round the picturesque neighbourhood. Sometimes we 
would alight at a distant point to return home on foot; 
sometimes we would wend our way through green hop- 
gardens on one side and golden cornfields on the other for 
a distance of many miles ; yet we never wearied." 

A lesser friendship which Dickens owed to the Watsons 
was that with Sir William Boxall, R.A., the famous portrait 
painter, whom he met at Rockingham Castle in 1849. 

In January 1850 Boxall took part in the private 
theatricals at Rockingham Castle, playing Fenel, the lawyer, 
in "Used Up," the part which was Egg's in the Guild per- 
formances. And it seems evident that he at least had a 
hand in the painting of the scenery for the special theatre 
which was erected. In the letter to Mrs. Watson announcing 
the dates, and so on, the novelist wrote: 

"As your letter is decided, the scaffolding shall be 
re-erected round Charley's boots . . . and his dressing 
proceeded with. I have been very much pleased with 
him in the matter, as he never made the least demonstra- 
tion of disappointment or mortification, and was per- 
fectly contented to give in. {Here I break off to go 
to Boxall.) (Here I return much exhausted.) 

"P.S. — As Boxall (with his head very much on one 
side and his spectacles on) danced backwards from the 
canvas incessantly with great nimbleness, and made 
little digs at it with his pencil, with a horrible grin on 



MARY BOYLE AND SIR W. BOXALL 267 

his countenance, I auger that ho pleased himself this 
morning." 

The only other reference we have to the friendship is 
Forster's statement that in 1856 Boxall was one of those 
whose presence in Paris contributed to Dickens's enjoyment 
of his stay there. 



CHAPTER XLIX 

AMATEUR THEATRICALS LORD MULGRAVE 

And now we meet another remarkable group of friends. 
Dickens's passion for the theatre had been reawakened dur- 
ing his visit to Canada in 1842. We have seen in our first 
chapter how strong that passion had been in him in his 
youth; we know that only an accident — the accident of 
being prostrated by a bad cold on the very day that he 
was to display his histrionic gifts to Charles Kemble — had 
prevented him in those days from trying his fortune on the 
boards. Success in a higher realm of art came to him, and 
the passion slumbered. But only for a time. On the voyage 
to America in 1842 he had as fellow-traveller Lord Mul- 
grave, an officer in the Coldstream Guards, who was on his 
way to rejoin his regiment in Montreal. With him he 
struck up a marked friendship, and it was this officer who 
reawakened the old passion. First a word about this friend. 
He is mentioned first in a letter to Forster: 

"Lord Mulgrave (a handsome fellow, by-the-bye, to 
look at, and nothing but a good 'un to go) laid a 
wager with twenty-five other men last night, whose 
berths, like his, are in the fore-cabin, which can only 
be got at by crossing the deck, that he would reach 
his cabin first. Watches were set by the captain's, and 
they sallied forth, wrapped up in coats and storm caps. 
The sea broke over the ship so violently, that they were 
five and twenty mmutes holding on by the hand-rail 
at the starboard paddle-box, drenched to the skin by 
every wave, and not daring to go on or come back, 
lest they should be washed overboard ! News ! A dozen 
murders in town wouldn't interest us half as much." 

Arrived in America, Lord Mulgrave delayed rejoining his 
regiment as long as possible, in order to remain with the 

268 



AMATEUR THEATRICALS 269 

novelist, with whom he travelled as far as Boston. Later, 
of course, Dickens visited Canada, and at Montreal renewed 
his acquaintance with the officer. The officers of the Guards 
were organising some theatricals in aid of a charity, and 
Mulgrave, who was a member of the Committee, suggested 
that Dickens should take part. He agreed readily enough, 
and accepted the position of stage manager. Mulgrave 
played Mr. Selborne in a "A Roland for an Oliver," and 
Crupper in "Deaf as a Post," whilst Dickens was Alfred 
Highflyer in the first-named piece and Gallop in the second, 
also appearing as Captain Granville in "Past Two O'clock 
in the Morning." Mrs. Dickens took part also, and did 
it "devilish well, too." How the novelist enjoyed these per- 
formances is revealed in the high-spirited accounts of them 
which he wrote to Forster. 

Mulgrave remained one of Dickens's friends, and in after 
years, in England, their intercourse was intimate and fre- 
quent, but our chief interest in him lies in the fact that it 
was he who reawakened the old passion for "play-acting." 
Thenceforth it was strong in him, and the reading of The 
Chimes in 1844 served to revitalise it, so to speak. That 
very evening it was suggested — by Jerrold, no doubt — that 
some amateur theatricals might be organised, and in a more 
or less vague sort of way it was decided to do something 
of the kind when Dickens should return from Italy. Forster 
wrote to him in Genoa asking him whether he still thought 
they should have the play. "Are we to have that play???" 
Dickens replied: "Have I spoken of it, ever since I came 
home from London, as a settled thing!" Forster should 
have known his friend better! As though Dickens ever 
dropped an idea that had once taken possession of him! 
Within three weeks of his return a play had been selected, 
and the parts had been cast. Miss Kelly's theatre was 
taken, and there, on September 21, 1845, "Every Man in 
his Humour" was played. This was a "strictly private" 
show, done for the sheer love of it, but the success was 
tremendous, and thenceforth, on any excuse, we find Dickens 
organising theatricals. In 1847 it was for Leigh Hunt's 
and John Poole's benefit; in the following year it was for 
Sheridan Knowles's benefit; in 1850 and 1851 it was for 
the benefit of the Guild of Literature and Art; and then 



270 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

came a whole succession of performances "for love," at 
Tavistock House. With these many enterprises it is not 
our province to deal. Mr. T. Edgar Pemberton, 1 and Mr. 
S. J. Adair Fitzgerald 2 have told the whole story. We are 
concerned with the people who took part. With some of 
them we have already made acquaintance. There remain 
several others, some of them among the best loved friends 
that Dickens ever had. 

» " Dickens and the Stage." * V Dickens and the Drama." 



CHAPTER L 

JOHN LEECH 

First comes John Leech. Not because he was the most 
active in the theatricals, for he was not; nor only because 
of his association with them. But because he had a fore- 
most place in Dickens's regard — was one of the innermost 
circle, in which his was one of the most winning personali- 
ties. Like Stanfield, he was before all else a lovable man: 
modest, highly sensitive, for others as well as for himself; 
though of a somewhat melancholy temperament, yet capa- 
ble of the heartiest mirth; a staunch friend, incapable of 
wounding, incapable of making an enemy, ever glad to do 
a kindness ; he was, indeed, as true a gentleman as ever 
breathed. John Leech's art is John Leech himself — grace- 
ful and kindly — yet thoroughly masculine. For him Dickens 
had a very deep degard indeed. 

Forster certainly implies that Leech was introduced to 
Dickens in 1845, in connection with the theatricals at Miss 
Kelly's theatre, only we know better, for he had illustrated 
the Carol nearly two years before. None the less, we may 
reasonably assume that it was Jerrold who made Dickens 
and Leech personally known to each other. They were 
members of the "Punch" staff; Leech was just building up 
his reputation, and it is probable that Jerrold recommended 
him as illustrator for the Carol. This supposition is con- 
firmed by the statement of Mr. W. A. Fraser 1 that Leech 
first met Dickens in 1843. 

But it is at least probable that they had met seven years 
earlier, when Pickwick was in its infancy, before Sam Weller 
had come into being. When Seymour shot himself before 
the second number had appeared, and the publishers were 

1 The Dickensian, December 1906. 
271 



272 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

looking for his successor, Leech, like his old Charterhouse 
schoolfellow and life-long friend, Thackeray, applied for 
the honour. We know that Thackeray saw Dickens per- 
sonally, and showed him some specimen drawings, which 
were not considered good enough. We do not know whether 
Leech also applied to Boz himself, but according to Joseph 
Grego in his "Pictorial Pickwickiana," Leech was asked 
by the publishers to do a specimen drawing and he ac- 
cordingly submitted a pencil sketch, tinted in colours, of 
"Tom Smart and the Chair," which indicated promise. His 
art, at that date, was perhaps undeveloped, and in any 
case, Browne had been before him, and had been chosen. 
Leech was then but nineteen years old. At the time he was 
probably just sorry that he had failed to secure a fairly 
remunerative odd job; a few months later, when Pickwick 
was all the rage, the disappointment was probably a sore 
one. Within seven years, however, he was to be on terms 
of friendship with this great writer who had taken the town 
by storm, and to have secured a share in his friend's fame 
by illustrating that friend's noblest work — the Carol. 

For this book he prepared eight designs, four of which 
were etched on steel, the impressions being afterwards col- 
oured by hand, the remaining four being drawn on wood, 
and engraved by W. J. Linton. 

In the following year Leech shared with Maclise, Doyle 
and Stanfield, in the work of illustrating The Chimes, for 
which he did five drawings, and gave us the picture of Trotty 
Veck, which must stand for all time like Seymour's Mr. 
Pickwick and Phiz's Sam Weller. Dickens was delighted 
with his friend's work. He had, indeed, a very high opinion 
of Leech's genius, and he expressed it in an article he wrote 
in the "Examiner" in 1848, in appreciation of the artist's 
"The Rising Generation." And in a letter written in 1847, 
he wrote of Cruikshank and Leech as "the best caricaturists 
of any time, perhaps." 

In 1845 Leech contributed seven woodcuts to The Cricket 
on the Hearth. For The Battle of Life, in the following 
year, he did three drawings, and in connection with one of 
these he made a strange and unfortunate mistake. This 
is the illustration which closes the second part of the story, 
where Michael Warden is introduced into the elopement 




John Leech 



JOHN LEECH 273 

scene. Says Forster, "We did not discover this until too 
late for remedy . . . and it is highly characteristic of 
Dickens, and of the true regard he had for this fine artist, 
that, knowing the pain he must give in such circumstances 
by objection or complaint, he preferred to pass it silently. 
Nobody made any remark upon it, and there the illustration 
still stands . . ." And Forster quotes Dickens's letter to 
him on the subject: 

"When I first saw it, it was with a horror and agony 
not to be expressed. Of course, I need not tell you, 
my dear fellow, Warden has no business in the elope- 
ment scene. He was never there ! In the first hot 
sweat of this surprise and novelty, I was going to im- 
plore the printing of that sheet to be stopped, and 
the figure taken out of the block. But when I thought 
of the pain this might give to our kind-hearted Leech, 
and that what is such a monstrous enormity to me, as 
never having entered my brain, may not so present 
itself to others, I became more composed; though the 
fact is wonderful to me. . . . Leech otherwise is very 
good, and the illustrations altogether are by far the 
best that have ever been done for any of the Christmas 
books." 

For The Haunted Man, the last of the Christmas books, 
published in 1848, Leech did five illustrations. Thus, within 
twelve years of his Pickwick disappointment, he had been 
associated with Boz in every one of the writer's famous 
Christmas books. 

In 1845 Leech took part, as we have seen, in the 
theatricals of Miss Kelly's theatre, playing Master Mathew 
in "Every Man in his Humour." Macready particularly 
refers to his, Dickens's, and Lemon's acting as "very fine 
for amateurs." In 1847 he took the same part in the 
performances in aid of Leigh Hunt and John Poole. In 
the humorous fragment that Dickens wrote, purporting 
to be an account of the tour in the north of England, 
written by Mrs. Gamp, Leech is referred to, though not by 
name. Mrs Gamp has a conversation with the wig-man, 
Mr. Wilson: 



274 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

" 'Oh, Mrs. Gamp, I ask your pardon' — I never see 
such a polite man, Mrs. Harris ! 'P'raps,' he says, 'if 
you're not of the party you don't know who it was 
that assisted you into this carriage!' 

" 'No, sir,' I says, 'I don't indeed.' 

" 'Why, ma'am,' he says, a wisperin', 'that was 
George, ma'am.' 

" 'What George, sir? I don't know no George,' 
says I. 
. " 'The great George, ma'am,' says he. 'The Crook- 
shanks.' 

" 'If you'll believe me, Mrs. Harris, I turns my head, 
and see the wery man a making picturs of me on his 
thumb nail at the winder ! while another of 'em — a tall, 
slim, melancolly gent, with dark hair and a bage voice 
— looks over his shoulder, with his head o' one side, 
as if he understood the subject, and cooly says, "I've 
draw'd her several times — in Punch," he says, too ! the 
owdacious wretch!' 

" 'Which I never touches, Mr. Wilson, I remarks out 
loud — I couldn't have helped it, Mrs. Harris, if you 
had took my life for it! — 'which I never touches, Mr. 
Wilson, on account of the lemon !' " 

The reference here, of course, is to the fact that Leech 
very often gained inspiration for his famous cartoons from 
his friend's books. Mrs. Gamp also correctly records that 
Leech had a "bage voice." He could sing excellently, and 
his fine voice was always in demand on social occasions, 
though, we are told, he generally sang melancholy songs, his 
favourite being one about King Death. 

In 1848 Leech again played Master Mathew in the per- 
formances for the benefit of Sheridan Knowles. He also 
played the same part, as well as that of the Marquis de 
Lancy in "Animal Magnetism" at the Guild of Literature 
and Art inaugural performances, at Knebworth, in 1850, 
but he had no share in the subsequent performances in 
London and the Provinces, nor did he participate, except 
as a spectator, in the theatricals at Tavistock House. 

But he was ever a welcome guest at Dickens's house, and 
he shared with Mark Lemon the affection of the children. 



JOHN LEECH 275 

He was not boisterous, like Mark Lemon, but he was ever 
genial, and he could be merry, whilst there were a sweetness 
and tenderness about him that never failed to win the love 
of little children. In her book, "My Father, as I recall 
Him," Mamie Dickens tells how Leech and her father spe- 
cially learned the polka so as to be able to dance it with 
her and her sister at a children's party. "None can 
imagine our excitement and nervousness," he says, "when 
the evening came in which we were to dance with our pupils. 
Katie, who was a very little girl, was to have Mr. Leech, 
who was over six feet tall, for her partner, while my father 
was to be mine. My heart beat so fast that I could scarcely 
breathe, I was so fearful for the success of our exhibition. 
But my fears were groundless, and we were greeted at the 
finish of our dance with hearty applause, which was more 
than compensation for the work which had been expended 
upon its learning." 

The Dickens and Leech families spent several holidays 
together. During their stay at Brighton, in 1849, they had 
a very unpleasant experience, both the landlord and land- 
lord's daughter suddenly going raving mad, and the lodgers 
having to be driven away to the Bedford Hotel. 

Later in the same } r ear, the two families spent a holiday 
at Bonchurch, I.W. Here they had rollicking times. Dur- 
ing their stay they were visited by Forster, Lemon, Jerrold, 
Hablot Browne, Talfourd, etc., and they one and all gave 
themselves up to the fun. But the merriment suffered an 
unfortunate interruption. While bathing one day, Leech 
was knocked over by a blow on the forehead from a big 
wave, causing congestion of the brain. A serious illness 
followed, and eventually it was only the exertion by Dickens 
of his hypnotic powers that saved his friend's life. 

"My plans" (he wrote to Forster) "are all unsettled 
by Leech's illness; as of course, I don't like to leave 
this place while I can be of service to him and his good 
little wife. . . . Ever since I wrote to you Leech has 
been seriously worse. . . . The night before last, he 
was in such an alarming state of restlessness which 
nothing could relieve, that I proposed to Mrs. Leech 
to try magnetism. Accordingly, in the middle of the 



276 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

night, I fell to ; and after a very fatiguing bout of 
it, put him to sleep for an hour and thirty-five minutes. 
A change came on in the sleep, and he is decidedly 
better. I talked to the astounded little Mrs. Leech 
across him, when he was asleep, as if he had been a 
truss of hay ! What do you think of my setting up 
in the magnetic line, with a large brass plate: 'Terms, 
twenty-five guineas per nap'?" 

From that time, Leech steadily improved, and some days 
later, he was so much better that Dickens was able to leave 
him and return to London. 

In March 1848 Leech, Dickens, Lemon and Forster had 
a trip together to Salisbury Plain, and in the following 
November, the first-named three had a trip to Norwich, 
visiting also Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Blundeston, etc. In 
1851 Dickens and Leech, with the Hon. Spenser Lyttleton, 
made a short bachelor excursion to Paris, and had a very 
enjoyable time. Again, in 1854, Leech and his wife visited 
the Dickenses at Boulogne. 

Finally, it should be mentioned that in The DicTcensian 
for December 1913, there was reproduced a pencil sketch 
portrait of Dickens by Leech; an unfinished drawing, but 
revealing all the artist's charm and skill. The date of this 
drawing is not known. 



CHAPTER LI 



'UNCLE MARK 



Much more active in the theatricals was Mark Lemon. 
As in the case of Leech, Forster suggests that he was in- 
troduced to Dickens by Jerrold in connection with the per- 
formances at Miss Kelly's theatre. The suggestion is 
obviously wrong so far as it concerns Leech, but it is 
probably accurate in regard to Lemon. For many succeed- 
ing years he and the novelist were the best of friends. I do 
not think that there was ever that finer friendship that 
existed with some others, but they liked each other well, 
and Lemon's joviality and heartiness appealed to Dickens. 
At Twelfth Night parties, at the dinners and dances which 
followed the theatrical performances at Tavistock House, 
he was ever in great demand, rivaling Dickens himself as a 
provoker of merriment. What wonder that the children 
should love "Uncle Mark"? This giant — who could play 
Falstaff without padding — this hearty, rollicking Lord of 
Misrule, was a prime favourite with them, and the fact must 
have strengthened the bond of friendship with their father. 
"My sister and I," writes Mrs. Perugini to me, "were greatly 
attached, when we were little girls, to the two little daughters 
of Mr. Mark Lemon — Lally and Betty — and he and his 
wife were extraordinarily kind to us, having us constantly 
at their house. Our affection for them in return was so 
strong that they were always 'Uncle Mark,' and 'Aunt 
Nelly,' to us, although there was no tie of blood between us." 

From 1845 he was one of the leading spirits in all the 
amateur theatricals, and probably Dickens was his only 
superior as an actor in the company. Macready says that 
"the farce between Dickens and M. Lemon was very broad 
and laughable," whilst of his performance in the "Elder 
Brother," three months later, the great tragedian says, "the 
best-filled part in the play was Miramount by Lemon." 

277 



278 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Dickens, it may be added, described him as "so surprisingly 
sensible and trustworthy on the stage." 

In April 1848 Lemon was present at the Dombey dinner, 
and in that same year he dedicated one of his books to 
Dickens's two little girls. Dickens acknowledged the com- 
pliment in the following terms: "My dear Mark, I assure 
you, most unaffectedly and cordially, that the dedication 
of that book to Mary and Kate (not Catherine) will be a 
real delight to me, and to all of us. I know well that you 
propose it in affectionate regard, and value it and esteem 
it therefore, in a way not easy of expression." Mrs. 
Perugini very kindly informs me that the book thus referred 
to was "The Enchanted Doll." 

In this same year came the performances in aid of 
Sheridan Knowles and John Poole, Lemon playing Brain- 
worm in "Every Man in his Humour," and Falstaff in "The 
Merry Wives of Windsor." In 1848 Lemon, with Dickens's 
hearty approval and assistance, dramatised The Haunted 
Man. His version — a very good one — was produced at the 
Adelphi. In 1863 it was revived, J. L. Toole then achieving 
a success as Tetterby. Needless to say, Lemon was present 
at The Haunted Man dinner. 

In 1850 at the Guild of Literature and Art inaugural 
performances at Knebworth Mrs. Lemon played the part of 
Tib, owing to Mrs. Dickens, who had previously sustained 
the part, having sprained her ankle. To this accident, 
allusion was made in the epilogue, which was written in the 
form of a dialogue between old Knowell and Wellbred. Mrs. 
Dickens is alluded to, and Knowell says : 

"A word on her sad accident: but, quite 
Impromptu, not intended for to-night. 
Oh, may she soon recover from her sprain, 
To tread with us, her friends, these boards again!" 

To which Wellbred replies: 

"That fall sank all our spirits; but in need, 
'Tis said, a friend is found a friend indeed. 
Successful friendship has one's cares allayed." 

Whereupon Knowell interrupts with: 

"Ay, and the case relieved by Lemon — aid." 



"UNCLE MARK" 279 

Following these performances at Knebworth came the 
series in London and the provinces. As we have seen, 
Dickens had to ask to be absolved from his promise to 
write a farce, and instead a farce by Lemon was chosen, 
"to which Dickens soon contributed so many jokes and so 
much Gampish and other fun of his own, that it came to be 
in effect a joint piece of authorship." 

It was "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," which is now published 
in the Miscellaneous Papers as the joint work of Dickens and 
Lemon. Dickens played half a dozen characters, and Lemon 
took the parts of Slap, Mr. Tickle and a Virtuous Young 
Person. On the occasion of the Devonshire House per- 
formance, Lemon was stage manager, Dickens being desig- 
nated general manager. 

In 1854 came the first of the children's theatricals at 
Tavistock House. It is delightful to read how Dickens and 
Lemon, and Wilkie Collins, gave themselves up to the en- 
tertainment of the youngsters on these occasions, and the 
memory of these theatricals, when the play was followed by 

high revels, must be very precious to "Mr. H. m and 

"Miss Kate," who are the only survivors of those happy 
parties, of which Forster writes: 

"These began with the first Twelfth Night at 
Tavistock House, and were renewed until the principal 
actors ceased to be children. The best of the per- 
formances were 'Tom Thumb' and 'Fortunio,' in 1854 
and 1855, Dickens now joining first in the revel, and 
Mr. Mark Lemon bringing into it his own clever chil- 
dren and a very mountain of child-pleasing fun in 
himself. Dickens had become very intimate with him, 
and his merry, genial ways had given him unbounded 
popularity with the young 'uns,' who had no such 
favourite as 'Uncle Mark!' In Fielding's burlesque he 
was the giantess Glumdalca, and Dickens was the ghost 
of Gaffer Thumb ; the names by which they respectively 
appeared being the Infant Phenomenon and the 
Modern Garrick." 

In the summer of 1855, Dickens "threw open to many 
friends his Tavistock House Theatre, having secured for 
1 Now Mr. Henry F. Dickens, KC. He was then less than five years old. 



280 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

its lessee and manager, Mr. Crummies, for its poet, Mr. 
Wilkie Collins, in an entirely new and original domestic 
melodrama, and for its scene painter, Mr. Stanfield, R.A." 
"The Lighthouse" was produced, its actors being Dickens, 
the author of the play, Mr. Lemon, and Mr. Egg, and the 
manager's sister-in-law and eldest daughter. Lemon played 
Jacob Dale, the third Light-keeper. Two years later "The 
Frozen Deep" was produced at Tavistock House, Lemon 
playing Lieutenant Crayford. It was followed by "Animal 
Magnetism" in which he appeared as Pedrillo. 

As far as published records go, it might well be imagined 
that Dickens's associations with Lemon were almost ex- 
clusively of a dramatic character, but this was not the case. 
For several years they were on terms of intimacy, and they 
and their families frequently exchanged visits, their children, 
as may be gathered from Mrs. Perugini's letter which I 
have quoted, forming a strong bond between them. Dickens, 
in fact, took a strong liking to this big, hearty, jovial, 
"mountain of child-pleasing fun," this "most true-hearted 
and affectionate fellow," as he described him. The death 
of the novelist's infant daughter, Dora, in April 1851, gave 
Lemon an opportunity of showing that his friendship was 
of value. Dickens was in the chair at the General Theatrical 
Fund, and half an hour before he was to deliver his speech 
Forster was summoned out of the room to learn that his 
friend's child was dead. He decided to allow Dickens to 
make his speech before breaking the sad news to him. 

"As he went on to speak of actors having come from 
scenes of sickness, of suffering, aye, even of death itself, 
to play their parts before us, my part was very diffi- 
cult. 'Yet how often is it with all of us !' he proceeded 
to say, and I remember to this hour with what anguish 
I listened to words that had for myself alone, in all 
the crowded room, their full significance, 'how often 
is it with all of us, that in our several spheres we have 
to do violence to our feelings and to hide our hearts 
in carrying on this fight of life, if we would bravely 
discharge in it our duties and responsibilities.' In 
the disclosure that followed when he left the chair, Mr. 
Lemon, who was present, assisted me, and I left this 




St 

«2 .5 

^ s 

3* 




"UNCLE MARK" 281 

good friend with him next day, when I went myself 
to Malvern and brought back Mrs. Dickens and her 
sister." 

As a matter of fact, Lemon sat with Dickens all that 
night. Four years later, when he was sorrowing in his turn, 
his friend recalled that night: 

"My deae Mark, 

"I will call for you at two, and go with you to 
Highgate, by all means. 

"Leech and I called on Tuesday evening and left our 
loves. I have not written to you since, because I 
thought it best to leave you quiet for a day. I have 
no need to tell you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts 
have been constantly with you, and that I have not 
forgotten (and never shall forget) who sat up with 
me one night when a little place in my home was left 
empty. 

"It is hard to lose any child, but there are many 
blessed sources of consolation in the loss of a baby." 

In 1848 Dickens and Lemon, with Leech and Forster, 
had a pleasant excursion together. ". . . Obtaining horses 
from Salisbury," says Forster, "we passed the whole of a 
March day in riding over every part of the plain; visit- 
ing Stonehenge, and exploring Hazlitt's 'hut' at Win- 
terslow . . . ; all together with so brilliant a success" that 
in the following November Dickens proposed to "repeat the 
Salisbury Plain idea, in a new direction in mid-winter, to 
wit, Blackgang Chine in the Isle of Wight, with dark winter 
cliffs and roaring oceans." But when winter came, it was 
decided that it would be better to "make an outburst to 
some old cathedral city we don't know." Accordingly Nor- 
wich was selected. During this excursion, Dickens saw 
Yarmouth and Blunderstone for the first time. In the 
summer of 1849, the Lemons spent happy days with the 
Whites and the Dickenses and the Leeches at Bonchurch. 
Great was the fun, one of the most amusing incidents being 
a race between "Uncle Porpoise" and Dr. Lankester, who 
also was abnormally stout, Macready acting as judge. 



282 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

In 1858 came a most unfortunate estrangement, and 
though the friendship was eventually renewed, the old happy 
days had gone for ever. In the discussions which preceded 
the separation of Dickens and his wife, Lemon acted for 
Mrs.- Dickens, and Forster for the novelist. A month or 
two later, Dickens published the famous letter in which he 
gave the lie direct to various statements that had become 
the subject of common gossip. Many of his friends tried 
to dissuade him from his purpose, and there are no two 
opinions to-day as to the unwisdom of the course he took. 
But he persisted, and the letter appeared in Household 
Words. Not satisfied with this he endeavoured to secure 
the publication in "Punch." Naturally Lemon could not 
listen to such a proposition, and Dickens took offence, with 
the result that for nearly ten years they were as strangers. 
It was Clarkson Stanfield who brought about a reconcilia- 
tion, as we have seen, and over "Stanny's" open grave, the 
right hand of friendship was once more held out and 
grasped. 

Both men had but three years left to them, Dickens fol- 
lowing Lemon to the Great Beyond within a month. 



CHAPTER LII 



AUGUSTUS EGG 



It is strange to find so little mention of Augustus Egg 
in Forster's Life of Dickens. His name never occurs ex- 
cept to record a bare fact — that he took part in some 
theatrical performance, or visited Dickens at Broadstairs, 
for instances — or when he is mentioned in a quoted letter 
of the novelist's. It is all the more curious because in the 
case of Egg, at any rate, Forster cannot be accused of 
prejudice or jealousy. Mr. Renton, in fact, declares that 
Egg has "no inconsiderable claim to be included amongst 
those friends of Forster's who so largely contributed to 
make his life the happy, pleasant thing it, in the main, really 
was." And with Dickens Egg was a very dear friend. 
That is quite certain; every member of the Dickens circle 
who has left any record at all tells us so. The fact seems 
to be that Egg was not a man of strong personality, cap- 
able artist though he was. Moreover, he suffered from very 
poor health. Dickens writes of him as a "dear gentle little 
fellow," and, again, as a "dear fellow . . . always sweet- 
tempered, humorous, conscientious, thoroughly good, and 
thoroughly beloved." Many others bear similar testimony. 
He was just a "dear gentle little fellow," simple-hearted, 
lovable, but with no striking individuality at all. This prob- 
ably explains why no biography of him exists. It is a pity 
from the Dickensian's point of view, for the novelist most 
certainly had a very peculiar regard for him. 

It was in 1847 that they first met, Egg being introduced 
— probably by Frank Stone — in order that he might help 
in the theatricals on behalf of Leigh Hunt and John Poole. 
At once a strong friendship was formed. That is shown by 
Mrs. Cowden Clarke's recollection that during the provincial 

?S3 



284 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

tour Dickens "had a way of suddenly calling out to Egg 
during dinner or supper, 'Augustus !', and when he looked 
up, would exclaim with a half-serious, half-playful affec- 
tionatcness, 'God bless you, Augustus !' " The Editors of 
the novelist's Letters say: "We much regret having been 
unable to procure any letters addressed to Mr. Egg. His in- 
timacy with Charles Dickens began first in the plays of 
this year (184*7) ; but Mr. Egg became almost immediately 
one of the friends for whom he had an especial affection, 
and was a regular visitor at his house, and at his seaside 
places of resort for many years after this date." 

In the performances of 1847, and again in 1848, Egg 
played Master Stephen in "Every Man in His Humour," 
and John Brown in "Love, Law, and Physic." In this same 
year we find him visiting Dickens at Broadstairs, and in 
1849 they were together at Bonchurch. In 1851 in the 
private performances at Knebworth of "Every Man in His 
Humour," Egg took the part of Oliver Cobb, whilst in 
"Animal Magnetism" he was Jeffery. 

In the following year there were the Guild performances 
of "Not so Bad as we Seem" and "Mr. Nightingale's Diary." 
I have never seen it remarked that for these productions Egg 
designed the dresses. The play-bill certainly states : "The 
Costumes (with the exception of the Ladies' Dresses and the 
dresses of the Farce, which are by Messrs. Nathan of Tich- 
borne Street) made by Mr. Barnett, of the Theatre Royal, 
Haymarket. Under the superintendence of Mr. Augustus 
Egg, A.R.A." But the following extract from one of 
Dickens's letters to Lytton makes it clear that Egg not 
merely superintended the making of the dresses, but actually 
designed them : "The dresses are a perfect blaze of colour, 
and there is not a pocket-flap or a scrap of lace that has 
not been made according to Egg's drawings to the quarter 
of an inch." 

In Lytton's comedy Egg played Mr. David Fallen, and 
in the farce he was Tip and Christopher, whilst during the 
provincial tour he played Mr. Fennel in "Used Up." Of 
this tour he has left us a very interesting souvenir, in the 
shape of an admirable painting of Dickens as Sir Charles 
Coldstream in the last-named play. To complete the record 
of Egg's connection with the theatricals: he took part in 



AUGUSTUS EGG 285 

the production of both "The Lighthouse" and "The Frozen 
Deep" at Tavistock House. 

Continually during these years Egg was a favourite 
holiday companion of Dickens's. In 1853 they, with Wilkie 
Collins, had a memorable trip to Switzerland and Italy, and 
many a delightful adventure did they experience. Writing 
to Miss Hogarth from Milan, Dickens says : "We con- 
tinue to get on very well together. We really do admirably. 
. . . Egg is an excellent fellow, too, and full of good quali- 
ties ; I am sure a generous and staunch man at heart and 
a good and honourable nature." Forster makes no mention 
of him after this, but the friendship remained unchanged 
right up to Egg's death in 1863, when we find Dickens writ- 
ing to Wilkie Collins : 

"Ah, poor Egg! I know what you would think and 
feel about it. . . . What a large piece of a good many 
years he seems to have taken with him ! How often 
have I thought, since the news of his death came, of 
his putting his part in the saucepan (with the cover 
on) when we rehearsed 'The Lighthouse' ; of his falling 
out of the hammock when we rehearsed 'The Frozen 
Deep' ; of his learning Italian numbers when he ate the 
garlic in the carriage; of the thousands (I was going 
to say) of dark mornings when I apostrophised him as 
'Kernel'; of his losing my invaluable knife in that 
beastly stage-coach; of his posting up that mysterious 
book 1 every night ! ... In my memory of the dear 
gentle little fellow, he will be (as since those days he 
always has been) eternally posting up that book at 
the large table in the middle of our Venice sitting-room, 
incidentally asking the name of an hotel three weeks 
back! And his pretty house is to be laid waste and 
sold. If there be a sale on the spot I shall try to 
buy something in loving remembrance of him, good 
dear little fellow. Think what a great 'Frozen Deep' 
lay close under those boards we acted on ! My brother 
Alfred, Luard, Arthur, Albert, Austin, Egg. Even 
among the audience Prince Albert and poor Stone! *I 

1 His travelling journal. 



286 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

heard the' — I forget what it was I used to say — 'come 
up from the great deep' ; and it rings in my ears now, 
like a sort of mad prophecy. 

"However, this won't do. We must close up our 
ranks and march on." 

Of more intimate records of this friendship we have none 
at all. But Egg was one of the inner Dickens circle for 
sixteen years; the two men were together at every oppor- 
tunity, and in the novelist's home no one was more welcome 
than Egg, whilst W. P. Frith tells us that Dickens was often 
at Egg's house, Ivy Cottage, Black Lion Lane (now Queen's 
Road), Bayswater. 

As far as I knew, Egg never tried his hand at scenes or 
characters from his friend's books. 



CHAPTER LIII 

MRS. COWDEN CLARKE 

Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the famous compiler of the 
Shakespeare Concordance, was especially prominent in 
many of the theatricals. She was introduced to Dickens 
by Leigh Hunt at a party at the Tagarts' in 1848. "At 
once," she says, "with his own inexpressible charm of grace- 
ful ease and animation, Charles Dickens fell into delightful 
chat and riveted for ever the chain of fascination that his 
mere distant image and enchanting writings had cast about 
M. C. C, drawing her towards him with a perfect spell of 
prepossession. The prepossession was confirmed into affec- 
tionate admiration and affection that lasted faithfully strong 
throughout the happy friendship that ensued and was not 
even destroyed by death." 

Twenty-two years later she read in an Italian paper 
"Carlo Dickens e morto," and, she says, "the sun seemed 
suddenly blotted out as I looked upon the fatal line." 
Through all those years, "genial, kind, most sympathetic 
and fascinating" had been his companionship, and "very 
precious to me was his friendship." 

Mrs. Cowden Clarke was, indeed, one of the most sincere 
and loyal of Dickens's friends. But their association was 
confined mainly to the earlier theatrical performances in 
which she had a prominent share. 

At that first meeting at the Tagarts' house, Dickens re- 
ferred to her performance of Mrs. Malaprop in some recent 
theatricals, and she said that she understood he was organ- 
ising an amateur company to play "The Merry Wives of 
Windsor," and that she would be delighted to play Dame 
Quickly. Dickens did not take the proposal seriously, but 
she was very keen on playing the part, and so wrote to him 
repeating the proposal. She received the following reply: 

287 



288 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"I did not understand, when I had the pleasure of 
conversing with you the other evening, that you had 
really considered the subject, and desired to play. But 
I am very glad to understand it now; and I am sure 
there will be a universal sense among us of the grace 
and appropriateness of such a proceeding. . . . Will 
you . . . receive this as a solemn 'call' to rehearsal 
of 'The Merry Wives' at Miss Kelly's theatre, to- 
morrow (Saturday) week, at seven in the evening? 

"And will you let me suggest another point for your 
consideration? On the night when 'The Merry Wives' 
will not be played, and when 'Every Man in his 
Humour' will be, Kenny's farce of 'Love, Law, and 
Physic' will be acted. In that farce there is a very 
good character (one Mrs. Hilary, which I have seen 
Mrs. Orger, I think, act to admiration). ... If you 
find yourself quite comfortable and at ease among us 
in Mrs. Quickly, would you like to take this other 
part?" 

She accepted the offer, and she also played Tib in Ben 
Jonson's comedy. Mrs. Clarke's enthusiastic eulogy of 
Dickens as a manager has often been quoted and there is 
no need to repeat it here. But she wrote of the tour even 
more enthusiastically, if that were possible: 

"What enchanting journeys those were! The com- 
ing on to the platform at the station where Charles 
Dickens's alert form and beaming look met one with 
pleasurable greeting; the interest and polite attention 
of the officials; the being always seated with my sister 
Emma in the same carriage occupied by Mr. and Mrs. 
Charles Dickens and Mark Lemon; the delightful 
gaiety and sprightliness of our manager's talk; the 
endless stories he told us; the games he mentioned and 
explained how they were played; the bright amenity 
of his manner at various stations; . . . his indefati- 
gable vivacity, cheeriness, and good humour from morn- 
ing till night — all were delightful." 

"No man," she says, "could better make a 'party of 
pleasure' truly pleasant and worthy of its name. . . . 



MRS. COWDEN CLARKE 289 

Charles Dickens — beaming in look, alert in manner, radiant 
with good humour, genial voiced, the very soul of enjoy- 
ment, fun, good taste, and good spirits, admirable in or- 
ganising details and suggesting novelty of entertainment — ■ 
of all beings the very man for a holiday season; and in a 
singularly exceptional holiday season was it my fortunate 
hap to pass every hour that I spent in his society." 

As a souvenir of this tour Mrs. Clarke sent to Dickens 
a handsome blotting case which she had made. It was 
bound in green watered silk. In the corners were the names 
of the parts he had played; in the centre on the front was 
a leaf of heartease and forget-me-nots, surrounding the 
initials "Y. G." 1 In the centre on the other side was a 
group of rosebuds worked in gloss silks, and natural colours. 

He received other little tokens of admiration from her: 

"It is almost an impertinence to tell you how de- 
lightful your flowers were to me; for you who thought 
of that delicately-timed token of sympathy and re- 
membrance, must know it very well already. 

"I do assure you that I have hardly ever received 
anything with so much pleasure in all my life. They 
are not faded yet — are on my table here — but never 
can fade out of my remembrance. . . . 

"Ever faithfully and gratefully your Friend." 

In 1853 Dickens gave her a copy of Bleak House, re- 
questing that she would give the book a place on her shelves 
and in her heart — "where you may always believe me." It 
should also be said that he invited her to take part in some 
of the later theatricals, but she was unable to do so. 

In 1859 Mrs. Clarke wrote him in praise of A Tale of 
Two Cities, which was then appearing in serial form, and 
here is his warm acknowledgment: 

"I cannot tell you how much pleasure I have derived 
from the receipt of your earnest letter. Do not sup- 
pose it possible that such praise can be 'less than 
nothing' to your old manager. It is more than all 

> "Young Gas" — a name he had bestowed upon himself. 



290 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

else. Here in my little country house on the summit 
of the hill where Falstaff did the robbery, your words 
have come to me in the most appropriate and delight- 
ful manner. When the story can be read all at once, 
and my meaning can be better seen, I will send it to 
you . . . and it will be a hearty gratification to think 
that you and your good husband are reading it to- 
gether. For you must both take notice, please, that I 
have a reminder of you always before me. On my desk, 
here, stand two green leaves which I every morning 
station in their ever-green place at my elbow. The 
leaves on the oak-trees outside the window are less 
constant than them, for they are with me through the 
four seasons. 

The "two green leaves" referred to a porcelain paper- 
weight, another gift from this enthusiastic admirer. It had 
two green leaves enamelled on it, on either side of the initials 
"C. D." 

Later Mrs. Clarke and her husband left England and 
settled in Italy, and on their departure Dickens wrote, "I 
shall never hear of you or think of you without true interest 
and pleasure." As we have seen, it was in Italy that Mrs. 
Clarke read "Carlo Dickens e morto." "Often since then," 
she says, "the sudden blur of the sunshine comes over the 
fair face of Genoa, sea, sky, fortressed hills, which he de- 
scribed as 'one of the most fascinating prospects in the 
world' — when I look upon it and think that his loving eyes 
can never again behold a scene he loved so well; but then 
returns the bright clear light that illumined his own nature, 
making him so full of faith in loveliness and kindness as 
to shed a perpetually beaming genial effect upon those who 
knew him — and one's spirit revives in another and a better 
hope." 



CHAPTER LIV 

THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 

The (seventh) Duke of Devonshire is quite appropriately 
"placed" here. He never took part in any of the theatrical 
performances, of course, but his friendship with Dickens 
arose out of the Guild performances in 1851 in which he 
took a great interest, and for which he loaned his house 
in Piccadilly. He was never on intimate terms with the 
novelist, but he showed Dickens many kindnesses, and there 
was a great cordiality. The offer of Devonshire House was 
not spontaneous, but came in response to a direct appeal 
from Dickens. The response, however, was prompt and 
hearty, and the Duke in his princely ways (says Forster) 
discharged all the expenses attending the performances. A 
movable theatre was built and set up in the great drawing- 
room, and the library was turned into a green-room. 

Thenceforth great cordiality existed between Dickens and 
the Duke, and for some years they corresponded pretty 
frequently. Some of the novelist's letters are preserved and 
they are very hearty. From Boulogne in July 1856, for 
instance, Dickens wrote a long letter, acknowledging one 
from the Duke which had been received with "uncommon 
pleasure," and making interesting reference to the book 
then in hand. 

"I am so glad you like Flora. It came into my head 
one day that we have all had our Floras, and that it 
was a half-serious, half-ridiculous truth which had 
never been told. It is a wonderful gratification to me 
to find that everybody knows her. Indeed, some people 
seem to think I have done them a personal injury, and 
that their individual Floras (God knows where they are, 
or who !) are each and all Little Dorrits i" 

291 



292 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"We were all grievously disappointed that you were ill 
when we played Mr. Collins's 'Lighthouse' at my house," 
the letter proceeds. "If you had been well, I should have 
waited upon you with my humble petition that you would 
come and see it; and if you had come I think you would 
have cried, which would have charmed me. I hope to pro- 
duce another play at home next Christmas, and if I can 
only persuade you to see it from a special arm-chair and 
can only make you wretched, my satisfaction will be intense." 

In the following December he wrote: 

"The moment the first bill is printed for the first 
night of the new play I told you of, I send it to you, 
in the hope that you will grace it with your presence. 
There is not one of the old actors whom you will fail 
to inspire as no one else can ; and I hope you will see 
a little result of the friendly union of the arts, that 
you may think worth seeing, and that you can see no- 
where else. 

"We propose repeating it on Thursday, the Eighth; 
Monday, the Twelfth; and Wednesday, the Fourteenth 
of January. I do not encumber this note with so many 
bills, and merely mention those nights in case any one of 
them should be more convenient to you than the first. 

"But I shall hope for the first, unless you dash me 
(N.B. — I put Flora into the current number on pur- 
pose that this might catch you softened towards me, 
and at a disadvantage). If there is hope of your 
coming, I will have the play clearly copied, and will 
send it to you to read beforehand." 

The play, of course, was "The Frozen Deep." There is 
no record whether the Duke accepted the invitation, but it 
is more than probable that he saw the play at one of its 
many representations. 



CHAPTER LV 



MANY "SPLENDID STROLLERS' 



And now we come to some lesser luminaries who were 
prominent in the theatricals. That expression is used, not 
out of any disparagement of the men concerned, but merely 
in reference to their relations with Dickens. Those who are 
to be named in this chapter were not members of the inner 
Dickens circle. 

It is true that Forster declares that Dickens had an old 
and great regard for George Henry Lewes, but that is all 
the evidence we have of it. I suppose we are bound to 
accept the assurance though I confess that I do not find 
it easy. Justin McCarthy records one remark of Dickens's 
about Lewes which hardly goes to corroborate Forster. 
When Lewes wrote a series of essays in the "Fortnightly 
Review," says McCarthy, on the principles of success in 
literature, Dickens asked: "Success in literature: what on 
earth does George Lewes know about success in literature?" 
Not a particularly nasty remark, certainly, but it was not 
Dickens's way of talking about valued friends. And then, 
on the other side, there is Lewes's well-known article on 
Dickens which he wrote for the "Fortnightly" in 1871. 
Forster has dealt amply with that remarkable article — 
remarkable, not so much for the attitude it reveals, with 
which we are all quite familiar, as for its revelation of its 
writer's complete failure to understand a man whom he had 
known more or less intimately for years. One extract is 
sufficient : "Dickens once declared to me that every word 
said by his characters was distinctly heard by him; I was 
at first not a little puzzled to account for the fact that he 
could hear language so utterly unlike the language of real 
feeling, and not be aware of its preposterousness ; but the 
surprise vanished when I thought of the phenomena of 

293 



294 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

hallucination." The man who wrote that had palpably com- 
pletely failed to understand Dickens, and where there is such 
a hopeless lack of understanding there cannot be an intimate 
friendship. So that though Dickens may have had a cordial 
regard for him, Lewes did not occupy a place in the inner 
Dickens circle. His chief association with the novelist was 
in connection with the theatricals of 1847 and 1848. He 
played Cattermole's old part, Wellbred, in "Every Man in 
his Humour," and Andrew in "Love, Law, and Physic." 

Francis W. Topham was one of the artists who joined the 
company that produced "Not so Bad as we Seem" in 1851. 
He played Mr. Goodenough Easy. He was evidently a so- 
ciable individual, well liked by Dickens, for Forster records 
that he became a frequent guest at Devonshire Terrace. 
It should also be recorded that he painted three scenes from 
Dickens's books. One was from Barnaby Rudge, which he 
presented to the novelist, and which was sold in 1870 for 
£115 105., and another was from The Old Curiosity Shop, 
representing Little Nell and her grandfather in the tent 
making bouquets for the racecourse, which he also presented 
to Dickens and which realised £288 15s. in 1870. The third 
was painted in 1856. It was entitled "Little Nell in the 
Churchyard," and it realised £325 10s. at the Gadshill sale. 

Dudley Costello took part in the first theatricals at Miss 
Kelly's theatre in 1845, playing George Downright in 
"Every Man in his Humour." Stanfield was to have played 
the part, but he backed out. It was offered to George 
Cruikshank, but he could Hot accept and Costello was in- 
vited. In 1847 he assisted at the performances in aid of 
Leigh Hunt and John Poole, and in 1848 he was Knowell 
in Jonson's comedy when it was performed in aid of the 
fund for the endowment of a perpetual curatorship of 
Shakespeare's house. Then, in 1851, he was the Earl of 
Loftus in Lytton's comedy, and Mr. Nightingale in "Mr. 
Nightingale's Diary." There is absolutely no record of 
any intimacy between him and Dickens. 

Peter Cunningham was associated with the tour of 1848 
as business manager, or as the Editors of Dickens's Letters 
put it, he "managed the wwtheatrical part of this Amateur 
Provincial tour." In 1851, however, he came on to the stage, 
and played Lord Le Trimmer in "Not so Bad as we Seem." 



MANY "SPLENDID STROLLERS" 295 

He was one of the most popular members of the companies, 
and with Dickens he was a favourite. Forster says : 

"His presence was always welcome to Dickens, and 
indeed to all who knew him, for his relish of social life 
was great, and something of his keen enjoyment could 
not but be shared by his company. His geniality would 
have carried with it a pleasurable glow even if it had 
stood alone, and it was invigorated by very consider- 
able acquirements. He had some knowledge of the 
works of eminent authors and artists ; and he had an 
eager interest in their lives and haunts, which he had 
made the subject of minute and novel inquiry. This 
store of knowledge gave substance to his talk, yet never 
interrupted his buoyancy and pleasantry, because only 
introduced when called for, and not made matter of 
parade or display. But the happy combination of 
qualities that rendered him a favourite companion, and 
won him many friends, proved in the end injurious to 
himself. He had done much while young in certain 
lines of investigation which he had made almost his 
own, and there was every promise that he would have 
produced much weightier works with advancing years. 
This, however, was not to be. The fascination of 
good-fellowship encroached more and more upon literary 
pursuits, until he nearly abandoned his former favour- 
ite studies, and sacrificed all the deeper purposes of 
his to the present temptation of a festive hour. Then 
his health gave way, and he became lost to friends as 
well as to literature. But the impression of the bright 
and amiable intercourse of his better times survived, 
and his old associates never ceased to think of Peter 
Cunningham with regret and kindness." 

It is a sad story of talents wasted. And yet, can it be 
truly said that a man who leaves sweet memories with a 
host of friends has wholly wasted his life? 

Among the "splendid strollers" of 1851 and 1852 was 
a young man named John Tenniel, destined presently to suc- 
ceed John Leech as chief cartoonist for "Punch," to draw 
the weekly cartoon for half a century, and to leave behind 



296 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

him, when he died in 1914, an imperishable name. Un- 
doubtedly recommended by his "Punch" colleagues, Doug- 
las Jerrold and Mark Lemon, he was cast for the part of 
Hodge, in "Not so Bad as we Seem," and he took part in 
the first performance at Devonshire House on June 18, 
1851. By the Editors of Dickens's Letters, Tenniel is de- 
scribed as "a new addition and a very valuable and pleasant 
one to the company." When the company went on tour 
in the provinces, and Forster was compelled to drop out, 
Tenniel, who had but a few weeks previously joined the staff 
of "Punch," and thus started his unique career, was pro- 
moted and given the part of Hardman. He proved a great 
success, and we find Dickens in a letter from Sunderland, 
paying special tribute to the excellence of his acting. 

In the following year Tenniel played the Hon. Tom 
Saville in performances of "Used Up." This was the end 
of his association as an actor with Dickens, but he remained 
one of the novelist's most esteemed friends, and Forster tells 
us how the young artist was one of the most frequent guests 
at Devonshire Terrace. No one who knows his work in 
"Punch" will have any doubt as to his knowledge of and 
affection for Dickens's books. Over and over again he went 
to those books for inspiration, and one of the half-dozen 
best known of his cartoons is that in which Gladstone is 
depicted as "The Political Mrs. Gummidge." Tenniel was 
associated with other artists in illustrating The Haunted 
Man, and contributed six charming pictures to that Christ- 
mas story. 

For Shirley Brooks, Lemon's successor in Mr. Punch's 
editorial chair, Dickens always had a cordial regard; that 
Brooks had at least an equal regard for Dickens is proved 
by the fact that he dedicated his first novel to him. They 
met pretty often and were always good friends. "To do 
Shirley a good turn was one of the best investments a man 
could make," says his biographer, Mr. George Somes 
Layard. Dickens made the investment in 1855. Brooks 
commenced to write "The Gordian Knot" for "Bentley's 
Miscellany," but failed to keep up the instalments, partly be- 
cause he had more work on hand than he could do, and partly 
because of some domestic trouble. Bentley threatened legal 
proceedings, but Dickens, with memories, no doubt, of his 




Charles Dickens as Sib Chables Goldstbeam in 

"Used Up" 

From the Painting by Augustus Egg, 7?.A. 



MANY "SPLENDID STROLLERS" 297 

own early days, stepped in, and as the result of his good 
offices the trouble was settled amicably. Not long before his 
own death, Dickens visited Brooks, who was ill and scarcely 
expected to live long, but yet was to live to write an In 
Mcmoriam leading article of the novelist for "Home News," 
and to purchase a souvenir of his friend at Christie's. He 
bought a bust of Landor for £25 — which Mr. George Somes 
Layard purchased thirty years later for 4>s. 6d. ! Brooks 
played Bateson and Darker in the performances of "The 
Frozen Deep" in aid of Douglas Jerrold's family in 1847. 

Forster does not even mention James Robinson Planche, 
but he was very prominent in connection with the Tavistock 
House performances. The late Canon Ainger, who, as a 
youngster, took part in these festivities, in his article entitled 
"Mr. Dickens's Amateur Theatricals" records: 

"Our first attempt was the performance of Albert 
Smith's little burletta of 'Guy Fawkes' ... ; at an- 
other time we played 'William Tell,' from the late 
Robert Brough's clever little volume, 'A Cracker Bon- 
bon for Evening Parties.' In those days there were 
still extravaganzas written with real humour and 
abundant taste and fancy. The Broughs, Gilbert a 
Beckett, and Mr. Planche could write rhymed couplets 
of great literary excellence, without ever overstepping 
the bounds of reverence and good taste." 

Planche was, of course, the author of "Fortunio" which 
was played by the children in 1855. 

Neither Lionel nor Robert B rough is mentioned by 
Forster, but both, like Planche, were very prominent in con- 
nection with the children's theatricals, though they did not 
act. One year, as we have just seen, Robert Brough's 
"William Tell" was played, and with reference to this 
Canon Ainger says: 

"Extreme purists may regret that the story of the 
struggle for Swiss independence should ever be pre- 
sented to children in association with anything ludi- 
crous; but, those critics excepted, no other could object 
to the spirit of 'gracious fooling' in which Mr. Brough 



298 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

represented William Tell brought up before Gesler 
for 'contempt of hat'; Albert, his precocious son, 
resolving that, as to betraying his father, 'though torn 
in half, I'll not be made to split' ; and when he confronts 
his father, about to shoot at the apple, by assuring 
him that he is 'game,' the father replying, 'Wert thou 
game, I would preserve, not shoot thee.' This is drol- 
lery, it seems to us, not unworthy of Sydney Smith 
or Hood, and in no way to be placed in the same cata- 
logue with the vulgarities and inanities of a later 
brood." 

Gilbert a Beckett stood closer to Dickens than most of 
those named in this chapter. With him and with his family 
there was a very cordial friendship; but there is practically 
no record of it. As Canon Ainger has told us, he was to 
the fore at Tavistock House, but years before that he had 
been associated with the theatrical performances, having 
played William in the very first presentation of "Every 
Man in his Humour" in 1845. When the performance was 
repeated a couple of months later, however, he dropped out, 
W. Eaton taking his place. But in 1844 he had been asso- 
ciated with Mark Lemon in dramatising The Chimes. The 
piece was produced at the Adelphi theatre with Dickens's 
entire approval in December of that year. 

Robert Bell, who played Paddy O'Sutiivan in "Not so 
Bad as we Seem" at the Hanover Square Rooms in 1851, had 
been friendly with Dickens for some years prior to that, 
and had been one of the company at The Haunted Mart 
dinner. G. A. Sala says that he was an intimate friend 
of Dickens's. Certainly he was a frequent and welcome guest 
at the novelist's house. In July 1866 he appeared as 
Rogue Riderhood in a version of Our Mutual Friend entitled 
"Dustman's Treasure," which was produced at the Britannia 
Theatre. He was a frequent contributor to Household Words 
and All the Year Round. Percival Leigh was another of 
Mr. Punch's young men introduced for the performances 
of 1845. He was a frequent guest at Dickens's house, but 
never penetrated beyond the outer circle. He wrote occa- 
sionally for Household Words. 

Mr. Francesco Berger, who is happily still with us, was 



MANY "SPLENDID STROLLERS" 299 

a very young man when, as a music student in Leipzig, he 
met and formed a friendship with Dickens's eldest son, who 
was studying the German language in that city. That 
friendship naturally led to visits to Tavistock House, where 
he became popular. That was in 1854. In the following 
year, when preparations were commenced for the production 
of "The Lighthouse," Dickens asked this clever young 
musician to compose for it an original overture, and to 
arrange the incidental music. He did as he was asked, and 
in his "Reminiscences, Impressions, and Anecdotes" he has 
told of the happiness associated, not only with the perform- 
ances themselves, but with the rehearsals too. 

In 1857 Mr. Berger wrote the music for "The Frozen 
Deep" and conducted the orchestra. At the performance 
before Queen Victoria at the Gallery of Illustration copies 
of the overture, bound in satin, were handed to her Majesty 
and the Prince Consort. 

At the conclusion of the Tavistock House performances 
Dickens sent the young composer a set of three shirt-front 
studs, each engraved "C. D. to F. B." They were "a little 
memorial," wrote the novelist, "in remembrance of our 
pleasant play and the obligations it owes to you. I can 
never forget the pains }^ou have taken with it, or the spirit 
and genius with which you have rendered it high service." 
In 1857 Mr. Berger was associated with Dickens in the 
efforts to assist the family of Douglas Jerrold, and was 
one of the three conductors at the concert at St. Martin's 
Hall on June 27. 

There were many others who took part in this per- 
formance or that, but who call for no mention here. They 
came simply to play certain parts, walked across the stage, 
and never entered into Dickens's life in any degree at all. 

Perhaps, however, this is an appropriate place in which 
to mention James Sheridan Knowles, by reason of the fact 
that it was primarily for his benefit that the performances 
of 1848 were given. Dickens had been pretty well ac- 
quainted with him before that. They had quarrelled, too, 
and made it up again. This is clear from Dickens's letter to 
Knowles dated May 26, 1847: 



300 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"My dear Knowles, 

"I have learned, I hope, from the art we both 
profess (if you will forgive this classification of my- 
self with you) to respect a man of genius in his 
mistakes, no less than in his triumphs. You have so 
often read the human heart well that I can readily 
forgive your reading mine ill, and greatly wronging 
me by the supposition that any sentiment towards you 
but honour and respect has ever found a place in it. 

"You write as few lines which, dying, you would wish 
to blot, as most men. But if you knew me better, as 
I hope you may (the fault shall not be mine if you 
don't), I know you will be glad to have received the 
assurance that some part of your letter has been written 
on the sand and that the wind has already blown 
over it." 

They did get to know each other better, but there never 
developed a close friendship. Knowles was scarcely the 
man for that. He was a competent dramatist, and a fairly 
good actor ; beyond that he and Dickens had nothing in com- 
mon, and a letter of the novelist's written in January 1850 
suggests that he made some demands upon the tolerance 
of his friends. 



CHAPTER LVI 

A GROUP OF ACTORS 

Naturally Dickens numbered many professional actors 
among his friends. Of these, of course, Macready was far 
and away first in his regard. Later Fechter, of whom we 
shall speak more fully presently, exercised an extraordinary 
fascination over him. With these two he was especially 
intimate, but there were several others with whom he was 
on excellent terms. "Dear old Charles Kemble," for in- 
stance, with whom "occasional happy days" were spent, and 
there were Samuel Phelps, and John Parry, and Whitworth, 
Helen Faucit and Miss Dolby, "than whom none were more 
attractive to him." 

Towards the Keeleys he was especially well disposed. 
Mrs. Keeley's acting as Smike in a "pirated" version of 
Nickleby in 1838, he described as excellent, and in 1844 
he consented to the presentation by her and her husband 
of a version of Chuzzlewit. Keeley asked him for a prologue. 
He declined, but he wrote: "Believe me to be quite sincere 
in saying that if I felt I could reasonably do such a thing 
for any one I would do it for you." He was starting for 
Italy within the week, but he superintended one rehearsal. 
In 1845 Dickens requested Albert Smith to dramatise The 
Cricket on the Hearth for the Keeleys ; and Mr. Keeley 
played Caleb Plummer, Mrs. Keeley, Dot, and their daugh- 
ter Mary, Bertha. In 1846 Albert Smith prepared The 
Battle of Life for the stage, and the Keeleys produced it, 
Dickens travelling from Paris expressly to attend the re- 
hearsals. That he thus countenanced such productions by 
the Keeleys is clear enough evidence of his high opinion of 
their acting and of their characters, too. And he counted 
them among his best friends. 

With Benjamin Webster he was very friendly for a num- 
ber of years — on hearty intimate terms, in fact, In 1868 

301 



302 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Webster, while Dickens was in America, produced No 
Thoroughfare with Fechter in the leading part, and in con- 
nection with this production we have Dickens's own declara- 
tion of his high opinion of the man. For in a letter to 
Fechter concerning the play, he wrote: "Tell Webster, 
with my regard, that I think his proposal honest and fair; 
that I think it, in a word, like himself; and that I have 
perfect confidence in his good faith and liberality." 

John P. Harley was one of the earliest friends that 
Dickens made in the theatrical world. TJie Strange Gentle- 
man, the novelist's first serious dramatic venture, was pro- 
duced at St. James's Theatre in September 1836, and 
Harley played the title role. It is declared by Theodore 
Taylor that Dickens himself took a part under an assumed 
name, but we have no other evidence to that effect. The 
piece ran for three months, and then was succeeded by 
The Village Coquettes, in which Harley played the part of 
Martin Stokes. In 1847 the book of words was published 
by Bentley, with a dedication to Harley. In March 1837 
Is She His Wife? followed the Coquettes, with Harley as 
Felix Tapkins. On March 13 — seven days after the first 
performance — Harley took his benefit, and the play bill 
announced: "Mr. Harley will, in the character of Mr. 
Pickwick, make his first visit to the St. James's Theatre 
and relate to a Scotch air his experiences of a 'whitebait 
dinner at Blackwall,' edited expressly for him by his biog- 
rapher 'Boz.' " 

These theatrical associations led to a personal friendship 
which was close and lasting. On June 27, 1837, we read 
that Harley dined with Dickens, Forster, and Macready at 
Doughty Street, and Macready records that he "laughed 
much at Mr. Harley's theatrical efforts to entertain." 
Harley was at the Nickleby dinner, and at the Clock dinner, 
too, and on February 7, 1839, we find Dickens inviting him 
to join his birthday party, which was to consist of Leigh 
Hunt, Ainsworth, and Forster. 

In the following June we have a letter of the novelist's 
inviting Harley to Petersham: "Can you come if it's fine? 
Say yes, like a good fellow as you are, and say it per 
post." Harley received a copy of Nickleby, inscribed: 
"J. P. Harley, Esquire, from his friend Charles Dickens," 



A GROUP OF ACTORS 303 

which seventy-six years later was sold for £125. Harley 
died in 1858, and to the end his friendship with the novelist 
remained unbroken. 

John Hullah, who wrote the music for The Village Co- 
quettes, was on very friendly terms with Dickens in those 
early days, and the novelist's letters to him at the time are 
quite familiar in tone. But very little is known of their 
later relations. Hullah outlived Dickens by fourteen years, 
and they certainly remained on good terms, but Forster 
ignores him utterly, and after 1836 he is mentioned in 
only one of the novelist's letters. That letter is dated 
October 24, 1860, and is addressed to Wilkie Collins. 
"Early in the morning, before breakfast," says Dickens, 
writing from Brighton, "I went to the nearest baths 
to get a shower-bath. They kept me waiting longer 
than I thought reasonable, and seeing a man in a cap in 
the passage, I went to liim and said: 'I really must request 
that you'll be good enough to see about this shower-bath'; 
and it was Hullah! waiting for another bath." In Miscel- 
laneous Papers Dickens mentions Hullah once or twice, 
though only in regard to his musical fame. The references 
are all friendly in tone, however, showing that there had 
been no break in the good relations. 






CHAPTER LVH 

BEV. JAMES WHITE 

Dickens was at the very zenith of his powers during the 
latter Devonshire Terrace days and the Tavistock House 
days. The old friends * he had and their adoption tried 
were firmly grappled to his heart, but he was ever making 
new friends, and in the period under notice there were at- 
tracted to him many fine men whom he valued for qualities 
of head and heart, who found themselves drawn to him by 
that breezy manliness, that earnest openness of heart, that 
hearty capacity for friendship that characterised him 
throughout his life. About many of these friendships there 
is not, to us now, that glamour that surrounds some of 
the earlier ones, but they were all sincere and deeply rooted. 
There was the Reverend James White, the Isle of Wight 
parson, for instance. Few friends were better loved, none 
was more worthy of the novelist's friendship. I do not 
know how they came to be "first acquaint." Possibly it 
was through Macready, who had produced with success 
White's play, The King of the Commons; but howsoever 
it was, and whensoever, we have plenty of evidence that their 
friendship was particularly close and hearty. "With 
Dickens, White was popular supremely for his eager good- 
fellowship," says Forster, "and few men brought him more 
of what he always liked to receive. But he brought nothing 
so good as his wife. 'He is excellent, but she is better,' is 
the pithy remark of his first Bonchurch letter. . . ." 

In 1849 Dickens decided to spend his summer holiday at 
some other place than Broadstairs, and he selected the Isle 
of Wight, taking a house at Bonchurch. He was attracted 
there, says Forster, "by the friend who had made it a place 
of interest for him during the last few years, the Reverend 
James White, with whose name and its associations my 

304 




No. 1 Devonshire Terrace 
From a Photograph by E. Snowdev Ward 



REV. JAMES WHITE 305 

mind connects inseparably many of Dickens's happiest 
hours ! 

"To pay him fitting tribute" (Forster adds) "would 
not be easy, if here it were called for. In the kindly, 
shrewd Scotch face, a keen sensitiveness to pleasure 
and pain was the first tiling that struck any common 
observer. Cheerfulness and gloom coursed over it so 
rapidly that no one could question the tale they told. 
But the relish of his life had outlived its more than 
usual share of sorrow; and quaint, sly humour, love 
of jest and merriment, capital knowledge of books, 
and sagacious quips at men, made his companionship 
delightful." 

It is interesting to note that it was during this holiday 
that Dickens's boys had as playmates a golden-haired lad 
named Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose parents lived on 
the island. 

One might quote a great deal from Dickens's letters to 
White, but it is not necessary. The letters were frequent 
and lengthy and brimful of hearty friendship. The friends 
met fairly often, too, and White and his family were always 
enthusiastically welcomed at the novelist's home. It has to 
be added that White was a frequent contributor to House- 
hold Words from its commencement and to All the Year 
Round. In October 1852 he was invited to contribute to the 
Christmas number. "We are now getting our Christmas 
extra number together, and I think you are the boy to do, 
if you will, one of the stories. . . . The grandfather might 
very well be old enough to have lived in the days of the 
highwaymen. Do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or 
both, to do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? 
If you do, I embrace you (per post), and throw up a cap I 
have purchased for the purpose into mid air." White did 
feel disposed, and wrote "The Grandfather's Story" — "a 
very good story indeed," Dickens declared. Four years 
later he contributed "the Scotch Boy's Story" to The 
Wreck of the Golden Mary. These were all the Christmas 
numbers in which he appeared, but he often wrote for the 
weekly issues of both papers. 



CHAPTER LVin 

80ME VALUED FRIENDS OF THIS PERIOD 

Another very special favourite was Sir James Emerson 
Tennent. When Dickens was in his prime — certainly from 
1850 onwards — nobody was more welcome at his house; 
and the last book that he completed — Our Mutual Friend 
— was dedicated to Tennent. The friendship is not surpris- 
ing. Tennent was a staunch supporter of reform. He was 
at Earl Grey's side in the final struggle over the Reform 
Bill in 1832, and later he supported Peel, though he was 
secretary to the Government of Ceylon when the Corn Laws 
were actually repealed. He was, in fact, an enlightened man, 
a widely travelled man, with genuine literary capacity, and 
he was gifted with the all too rare capacity for friendship. 

In 1853 Dickens and the Tennents had many happy days 
together at Naples and elsewhere in Italy, and those days 
remained with Dickens a particularly pleasant memory. 
We find him writing in 1857, for instance: "I must thank 
you for your earnest and affectionate letter. It has given me 
the greatest pleasure, mixing the play in my mind confusedly 
and delightfully with Pisa, the Valetta, Naples, Hercu- 
lanasum — God knows what not." The play referred to was 
The Frozen Deep. The friendship continued and grew 
stronger. Tennent was frequently at Dickens's house, and 
he was one of the few friends for whom the novelist turned 
out a couple of postilions "in the old red jackets of the 
old red royal Dover road." In 1864 came the dedication 
of Our Mutual Friend, to which the following is an allusion : 
"I am heartily pleased that you set so much store by the 
dedication. You may be sure that it does not make me 
the less anxious to take pains, and to work out well what 
I have in my mind." 

Tennent died in March 1869. Just at that time Dickens's 
health was failing, and he was soon to have that breakdown 

306 



SOME VALUED FRIENDS 307 

which was the beginning of the end. But he determined to 
attend his friend's funeral. On March 11 he read at York, 
and, says Forster, by shortening the pauses in the reading, 
he succeeded, after a violent rush, in catching the mail. He 
travelled through the night, and so reached London in 
time. "He appeared 'dazed' and worn," says Forster. "No 
man could well look more so than he did that sorrowful 
morning." On the following day, in a letter to Austen 
Layard, Dickens referred sadly to those Italian days of 
sixteen years before: "I came to town hurriedly to attend 
poor dear Emerson Tennent's funeral. You will know how 
my mind went back, in the York uptrain at midnight, to 
Mount Vesuvius and our Neapolitan supper." 

With the last named, Sir Austen Henry Layard, there 
was a very similar friendship. Laj^ard had been of the 
company during those days in Italy ; he, too, as all the 
world knows, was a great traveller; he, too, was a Member 
of Parliament, whose views on most questions coincided with 
Dickens's own ; he, too, possessed literary tastes and gifts ; 
he, too, had the capacity for friendship highly developed. 
With him, as with Tennent, there were many "social enter- 
tainments"; he was a frequent and heartily welcome guest 
at Dickens's house; for him, too, the postilions were turned 
out on the Dover road. They met about 1851, and the 
Editors of Dickens's Letters tell us that the novelist at 
once conceived for the great Nineveh traveller an affectionate 
friendship which went on increasing for the rest of his life. 

Forster tells us that Layard held the same opinion of 
Dickens as Sir Arthur Helps — that he was "a man to con- 
fide in, and look up to as a leader, in the midst of any great 
peril." And he records that Layard was at Gadshill during 
the Christmas before Dickens went to America for the last 
time. 

We have it on the authority of the Editors of Dickens's 
Letters that the Rev. Edward Tagart was a very highly 
esteemed and valued friend, and there is plenty of evidence 
in support of this statement both in the Letters and in 
Forster's book, though Tagart certainly had not the social 
qualities of Tennent and Layard. It was in the early 
'forties that they came to know each other. Dickens found 
himself somewhat out of sympathy with the Established 



308 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Church, and for two or three years took sittings at the 
Little Portland Street Unitarian Chapel, of which Mr. 
Tagart was minister, and although they had met before, it 
was during this period that their friendship was formed and 
cemented so firmly that it outlived Dickens's return to the 
Established Church. In 1844 we find Tagart and his family 
visiting the novelist at Albaro, and in 1849 they were at 
the Copperfield christening dinner, on which occasion, 
Forster tells us, the reverend gentleman was seated next to 
Carlyle, and "was soon heard launching at him various 
metaphysical questions in regard to heaven and suchlike." 
Forster adds: "The relief was great when Thackeray intro- 
duced, with quaint whimsicality, a story which he and I had 
heard Macready relate in talking to us about his boyish 
days, of a country actor who had supported himself for 
six months on his judicious treatment of the 'tag' to the 
Castle Spectre." 

Which reminiscence suggests that the good Mr. Tagart 
(as Forster calls him) was scarcely the friend for all occa- 
sions. He was a solid, good man, for whose character and 
intellect Dickens had high esteem, but his sense of humour 
was not highly developed, and of intimacy such as existed 
with Tennent and Layard there was really none. 

Sir Joseph Oliffe was a valued friend of whose intimacy 
with the novelist there is very little record. Forster never 
mentions him at all, yet Dickens declares in one of his 
letters: "I loved him truly. His wonderful gentleness and 
kindness years ago, 1 when we had sickness in our household 
in Paris, has never been out of my grateful remembrance. 
And, socially, his image is inseparable from some of the 
most genial and delightful friendly hours of my life." 
Oliffe was physician to the British Embassy in Paris, and 
the reference in this letter is to 1855, when Dickens and his 
family spent some time in the French capital during the 
writing of Little Dorrit. With Lady Oliffe the friendship 
was equally strong, as several letters show. Here is one as 
an example. It is dated May 26, 1861. 

"Touching the kind invitations received from you 

this morning, I feel that the only course I can take — 

1 The letter was written to Oliffe's daughter in March 1869, when her father 
died. 



SOME VALUED FRIENDS 309 

without being a Humbug — is to decline them. After 
the middle of June I shall be mostly at Gad's Hill — 
I know that I cannot do better than keep out of the 
way of hot rooms and late dinners, and what would 
you think of me, or call me, if I were to accept and 
not come! 

"No, no, no. Be still, my soul. Be virtuous, 
eminent author. Do not accept, my Dickens. She is 
to come to Gad's Hill with her spouse. Await her 
there, my child. (Thus the voice of wisdom.)" 

Writing of the late Devonshire House days, Forster says : 
"It will introduce the last and not least honoured name into 
my list of his acquaintance and friends, if I mention his 
amusing little interruption one day to Professor Owen's 
descriptions of a telescope of huge dimensions built by an 
enterprising clergyman who had taken to the study of the 
stars; and who was eager, said Owen, to see farther into 
heaven — he was going to say, than Lord Rosse; if Dickens 
had not drily interposed, 'than his professional studies 
had enabled him to penetrate.' " This is Forster's only 
reference to so distinguished a friend as Sir Richard Owen, 
F.R.S., whom he declares to have been not the least honoured 
of the novelist's friends. 



CHAPTER LIX 

CHATTNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND 

One of the most remarkable of all Dickens's friendships 
was that with Chauncey Hare Townshend, who worshipped 
the novelist with a devotion that was complete. Townshend 
was a most ardent hero-worshipper where Dickens was con- 
cerned, and was most demonstrative in his affection. Here, 
for instance, is an extract from a letter written by the 
novelist to his elder daughter in 1859: "I wish you could 
have seen him alone with me on Saturday; he was so ex- 
traordinarily earnest and affectionate on my belongings and 
affairs in general, and not least of all on you and Katie, 
that he cried in a most pathetic manner, and was so affected 
that I was obliged to leave him among the flower-pots in 
the long passage at the end of the dining-room. It was a 
very good piece of truthfulness and sincerity, especially in 
one of his years, able to take life so easily." 

No man was ever more capable of responding to such 
devotion than Charles Dickens, and he undoubtedly had a 
very tender regard for this eccentric clergyman. This is 
what he wrote to Miss Hogarth from America when 
Townshend died: 

"Just now ... I received your sad news of the 
death of poor Chauncey. It naturally goes to my 
heart. It is not a light thing to lose such a friend, 
and I truly loved him. In the first unreasonable train 
of feeling, I dwelt more than I should have thought 
possible on my being unable to attend his funeral. I 
know how little tins really matters ; but I know he 
would have wished me to be there with real honest 
tears for his memory, and I feel it very much. I never, 
never, never was better loved by man than I was by him, 

310 



CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND 311 

I am sure. Poor dear fellow, good affectionate gentle 
creature." 

Townshend, eccentric that he was, had all the qualities 
that win love. He was gentle, affectionate, simply good. 
Bulwer Ljtton says: "About this time (1821) I fortunately 
contracted an acquaintance with a young man some years 
older than myself. Indeed, he had just taken his degree 
at Cambridge, where he gained the Chancellor's medal for a 
poem on Jerusalem. . . . He impressed me with the idea 
of being singularly calm and pure. In spite of a beauty 
of face which at that time attracted the admiration of all 
who even passed him in the streets, his manners and con- 
versation were characterised by an almost feminine 
modesty." Speaking of him as he knew him many years 
later, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald says that Townshend had all 
the gentle amiability of Cousin Feenix, with a sort of old- 
fashioned simplicity and aristocratic bearing. Mr. Fitz- 
gerald even suggests that Townshend was the original of 
Cousin Feenix, but as in another place he names him as 
the prototype of Mr. Twemlow, we should not, perhaps, 
take this too seriously. None the less, both these char- 
acters, though somewhat eccentric, are simple souls with 
aristocratic bearing, gentlemen by birth, breeding, and 
nature, and such characteristics might well have been taken 
from Townshend. 

Dickens dedicated Great Expectations to this friend, and 
also gave him the manuscript of that book — very marked 
proof of the regard he had for him. Townshend, as is well 
known, selected Dickens as his literary executor — "I ap- 
point my friend Charles Dickens, of Gad's Hill Place, in 
the County of Kent, Esquire, my literary executor; and beg 
of him to publish without alteration as much of my notes 
and reflections as may make known my opinions on religious 
matters, they being such as I verily believe would be con- 
ducive to the happiness of mankind." 

It was a heavy and not very congenial task. The "Re- 
ligious Opinions of Chauncey Hare Townshend" are poor 
stuff, in any case. Dickens was just returned from that 
tragic American reading tour, and was in poor health. 
Some of the papers were hi Lausanne, some were in London; 



312 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

the religious opinions were the accumulation of years, some 
connected and prepared for the press, others "all over the 
place," so to speak, so that it was almost impossible to 
trace any sequence at all, and they were intermixed with 
journals of travel, fragments of poems, critical essays, old 
school exercises, etc. But Dickens went through with his 
task for the sake of the love that he had borne his friend, 
and the book was duly published. 



CHAPTER LX 

AN EDITOR AND AN HISTORIAN 

The friendship with Lord Macaulay and John T. Delane 
do not come within the same category as those just recorded, 
but Dickens knew both men very well — Delane particularly. 
He was, in Forster's words, always a highly esteemed friend 
of Dickens's, but there is no record of the friendship. 
Forster himself mentions the famous "Times" Editor only 
twice, and each time it is a bare reference; there are only 
two references to the novelist in Mr. A. I. Dasent's "Life 
of Delane" — each a mere record that the two men had 
dined together, once at Dickens's house in 1857, and once 
at Lord Alfred Paget's in 1858; and there are only three 
references to Delane in Dickens's Letters. One of these is 
a record of the fact that it was Delane who recommended 
the school at Boulogne to which Dickens sent four of his 
boys; another is the novelist's letter to Delane thanking 
him for his recommendation ; and the third is contained in 
a letter to Macready (1869), and is as follows: "I dined 
at Greenwich a few days ago with Delane. He asked about 
you with much interest. He looks as if he had never seen 
a printing office, and had never been out of bed after mid- 
night." 

To Dickensians, of course, Delane is remembered as the 
friend who did Dickens perhaps the greatest disservice of 
his life, though, of course, with good intent. For it was his 
advice which finally decided Dickens to publish his famous 
denial of the slanders which grew up around his separation 
from his wife. Forster, Lemon, and Yates, were all against 
publication, but Dickens remained unmoved by their argu- 
ments. At last Forster suggested that Delane should be 
asked for his advice, and Dickens agreed. He was for pub- 
lication, and the statement appeared in Household Words, 

313 



314 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

June 12, 1858. How the discreet adviser of Prime Min- 
isters and Foreign Secretaries came to give such bad advice 
in this case is a lasting puzzle. 

With Macaulay there was even less intimacy, though 
Dickens knew him before his American tour, and they re- 
mained on good terms until the historian died in 1859. We 
know practically nothing about their relations (though we 
do know that Macaulay had a high opinion of Dickens's 
works as a humanising influence) ; but it is quite certain 
that there was no intimacy between them. How could there 
be? Both were good men with strong humanitarian feelings ; 
but what could Macaulay, the solemn, portentous Macaulay, 
scholar, politician, devourer of Latin and Greek classics, 
have in common with Dickens, the man of the world, the 
liver of life at full pressure, Dickens the uneducated, who 
knew no more Latin or Greek than Macaulay's valet? But 
they could value each other's fine qualities, none the less. 
We cannot doubt but that Macaulay's virtues and genius 
were appraised by Dickens at their true worth; and we 
know that Dickens's love of humanity and power of ap- 
pealing direct to the heart were fully appreciated by 
Macaulay. The very last entry in the latter's Journal is: 

"Have you seen the first number of Dombey? There 
is not much in it; but there is one passage which 
made me cry as if my heart would break. It is the 
description of a little girl who has lost an affectionate 
mother and is unkindly treated by everybody. Images 
of this sort always overpower me, even when the artist 
is less skilful than Dickens." 

But, needless to say, Macaulay was not an undiscrim- 
inating admirer of the novelist. In 1842 he writes to the 
Editor of the "Edinburgh Review" : "I wish Dickens's book 
to be kept for me. I have never written a word on that 
subject; and I have a great deal in my head. Of course 
I shall be courteous to Dickens, whom I know, and whom 
I think both a man of genius and a good-hearted man, in 
spite of some faults of taste." The book referred to was 
American Notes. A short time afterwards we find him 
writing : 



AN EDITOR AND AN HISTORIAN 315 

"This morning I received Dickens's book. I have 
now read it. It is impossible for me to review it ; nor 
do I think you would wish me to do so. I cannot 
praise it, and I will not cut it up. I cannot praise 
it, though it contains a few lively dialogues and de- 
scriptions; for it seems to me to be on the whole a 
failure. It is written like the worst parts of Hum- 
phrey's Clock. What is meant to be easy and sprightly 
is vulgar and flippant, as in the first two pages. What 
is meant to be fine is a great deal too fine for me, as 
the description of the Fall of Niagara. ... In short, 
I pronounce the book, in spite of some gleams of 
genius, at once frivolous and dull. Therefore I will 
not praise it. Neither will I attack i± ; first, because 
I have eaten salt with Dickens ; secondly, because he 
is a good man, and a man of real talent ; thirdly, be- 
cause he hates slavery as heartily as I do ; and 
fourthly, because I wish to see him enrol in our blue 
and yellow corps, where he may do excellent services 
as a skirmisher and sharpshooter." 

So Macaulay never wrote about Dickens, and the fact 
may be regretted. A pronouncement by him on the work 
of the great humorist would have been tremendously in- 
teresting. An article from Macaulay's pen on Pickwick, 
for instance! 

He makes only one other reference to the novelist, which 
deals with the Leigh Hunt-Harold Skimpole controversy, 
and puts the case against Dickens very strongly. 



CHAPTER LXI 

SOME LESSER FRIENDSHIPS OF THIS PERIOD 

There are several members of what I have called the 
outer Dickens circle who more or less belong to this period. 
Frederick Locker-Lampson first saw the novelist at a charity 
bazaar in the Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital on July 
1, 1841. Three years later he was introduced to him at 
an Odd Fellows' club dinner. Another four years passed 
before their next meeting at the Athenasum, but after that 
they met often. 

It was Locker-Lampson who made Dickens and Dean 
Stanley acquainted, and it was through him, after the 
novelist's death, that Stanley made the offer of burial in 
the Abbey. His final estimate of Dickens is worth quoting: 
"Dickens was a very good fellow, a delightful companion, 
warm-hearted, gay-natured, with plenty of light-in-hand 
fun, and a great capacity for friendship. He was the de- 
voted lifelong servant of the public, and in my opinion, to 
say the least of him, he was the most laughter-provoking 
writer that the world has ever known." 

Tom Taylor, who succeeded Shirley Brooks as Editor of 
"Punch," was also very friendly — but, of course, Dickens 
was on friendly terms with all Mr. Punch's men. Certainly 
he was on excellent terms with Taylor from 1848. They 
were frequently together, but there is no record of their 
friendship, which was never really intimate. 

With Lord Carlisle Dickens was on the best of terms for 
a great many years. The first evidence we have of their 
friendship is a letter written by Dickens to Lord Carlisle 
in July 1851: "We shall be delighted to see you, if you 
will come down on Saturday. Mr. Lemon may perhaps be 
here with his wife, but no one else. And we can give you a 
bed that may be surpassed, with a welcome that cannot be. 

316 



SOME LESSER FRIENDSHIPS 317 

. . . You will have for a night-light in the room we shall 
give you the North Foreland Lighthouse. That and the 
sea air are our only lions. It is a very rough little place, 
but a very pleasant one, and you will make it pleasanter 
than ever to me." Dickens had much in sympathy with 
Carlisle, who had been a supporter of the great Reform 
Bill, and was always on the side of progress. 

Lady Molesworth was one of the select few for whom the 
postilions were turned out at Gadshill. She was "an old 
and dear friend." But we have no record of this friendship, 
and none of Dickens's letters to her is preserved. We know, 
however, that she and her daughter, Mrs. Ford, were fre- 
quent guests at his house, and that he was as often their 
guest; whilst at Paris in 1863 they had many pleasant 
hours together. 

No more can be written about Lord and Lady Lovelace. 
Forster mentions them only once, and their names do not 
occur in the Letters; but we do know that there was a very 
pleasant friendship, and that after Dickens's return from 
Italy in 1846 they were frequently guests at his house. 
Apparently this friendship arose out of the friendship with 
Sir George Crawford, with whom Dickens had had much 
pleasant intercourse in Genoa. He married Lovelace's sister, 
and thus Dickens came to know his wordship and his wife. 
We are told that Paul Dombey's death laid a strange fas- 
cination on Lady Lovelace. 

Matthew Higgins was another with whom Dickens was 
very friendly, yet of whom Forster records nothing except 
that the postilions were turned out in his honour. That 
fact alone, however, is proof that he was held in special 
esteem. His gift of humour, and his enthusiasm for social 
reform, would be sufficient to account for it. 

Giving a list of Dickens's most valued friends at this 
period Forster says: "Incomplete indeed would be the list 
if I did not add to it the frank and hearty Lord Nugent, 
who had so much of his grandfather, Goldsmith's friend, 
in his lettered tastes and jovial enjoyments." That is all 
we are told of a friendship that was very hearty and greatly 
valued. In regard to Lord Dudley Stuart we are in the 
same unfortunate position. "There was," says Forster, "a 
charm for him I should find it difficult to exaggerate in 



318 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Lord Dudley Stuart's gentle yet noble character, his re- 
fined intelligence and generous public life, expressed so per- 
fectly in his chivalrous face." No further reference to so 
valued a friend! 

Sir Arthur Helps may find his place here. He was a 
well-liked friend. His son has told all there is to tell of 
his associations with the novelist, in his recent book. 1 

Dickens's first letter to Helps was dated January 3, 1854, 
at which time the two men were clearly not intimate. 
Helps made it a habit, his son tells us, to send to friends 
and to prominent men he had met copies of his books. From 
the letter which I quote it seems clear that he had met 
Dickens on some occasion and now had sent him a copy of 
"Friends in Council" with a reminder of the occasion. This 
is the letter: 

"Dear Sir, 

"I too have a very pleasant remembrance of 
the evening to which you refer, and your name is so 
much a part of it that I required no other reminder. 

"I shall take counsel with our 'Friends,' with the 
greatest interest in the subject that occupies their 
thoughts. Sanitary improvements are the one thing 
needful to begin with; and until they are thoroughly, 
efficiently, and uncompromisingly made (and every 
bestial little prejudice and supposed interest contrari- 
wise crushed under foot) even Education itself will fall 
short of its uses." 

For some years after this there remained just an ac- 
quaintanceship, so far as I can gather, and it was not 
until 1861 that Dickens and Helps came really to know 
each other. In the summer of that year they met at Lytton's 
seat at Knebworth, and Forster tells us that then they 
visited, in company with Lord Orford, the so-called 
"Hermit" near Stevenage, whom Dickens described as Mr. 
Mopes in Tom Tiddler's Ground. Thenceforward they were 
on friendly terms, and they seem to have met fairly often. 
We know that Helps visited the novelist at Gadshill, for 

i "Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L." Edited by his 
son, E. A. Helps. 



SOME LESSER FRIENDSHIPS 319 

Forster tells us that the postilions were turned out for him. 

But of course the most interesting feature of Dickens's 
friendship with Helps is that it brought about his famous 
interview with Queen Victoria. He told the Queen of some 
very interesting photographs of battlefields of the American 
Civil War which Dickens had shown him, and Her Majesty 
desired to see them. Dickens sent them to her, and she ex- 
pressed a wish to meet him and thank him. 

Mr. Helps quotes a letter from Dickens to his father, 
which is of peculiar interest, and which I had not seen be- 
fore. It certainly is net published in The Letters of Charles 
Dickens. 

It is dated from Hyde Park Place, Saturday, March 26, 
1870, and is as follows: 

"The binder reports to me to-day that he wants 
'another fortnight' for the completion of the set of 
my books which I have entrusted to him to bind for 
the Queen. Of course he must have it, or he will for- 
ever believe that I spoilt his work by driving him. 

"En attendant, 1 send you for Her Majesty the first 
number of my neAv story which will not be published 
till next Thursday, the 31st. Will you kindly give 
it to the Queen with my 103'al duty and devotion? If 
Her Majesty should ever be sufficiently interested in 
the tale to desire to know a little more of it in advance 
of her subjects, you know how proud I shall be to 
anticipate the publication. 

"You will receive soon after this a copy of your 
Godson's most portable edition of his writings for 
yourself. I hope you may like it, and, revising and 
abbreviating the Catechism, 'do one thing in his name' : 
— read it." 

Tins letter makes one wonder whether Queen Victoria or 
Sir Arthur Helps could have helped us to solve the Drood 
problem. 

Thomas Milner Gibson was a staunch progressive in 
Parliament, for whose public work Dickens had a great 
admiration, and with whom he was on most friendly terms. 
Dickens especially appreciated Gibson's efforts which were 



320 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

chiefly responsible for the repeal of the advertisement duty, 
the newspaper stamp duty, and the paper duty. But they 
had been friends long before those important reforms were 
brought about — intimate friends : indeed, this friendship was 
one of the pleasantest of the novelist's life. 

Forster never once mentions George Grove, Secretary of 
the Society of Arts, Secretary and Director of the Crystal 
Palace Co., Editor of "Macmillan's Magazine," etc., and 
none of Dickens's letters to him is preserved. But he was 
well acquainted with the novelist, and when Sir Arthur 
Helps wrote for "Macmillan's" in 1870 an In Memoriam 
of Dickens he wrote to him that "Dickens was the best and 
pleasantest person in the world to tell a good story to. 
You saw that he was taking in every word. As you went 
on, the sense of fun seemed to rise in his face — his eyes shone 
and looked more and more knowing as you neared the point ; 
and the moment it was reached there was just that explosion 
that was most gratifying." 

Thomas Chapman, the Chairman of Lloyd's, was a "much- 
valued friend" with whom there was frequent, kindly inter- 
course, but we have no particulars of the friendship save 
that he obtained a situation in the City for the novelist's 
younger brother, Augustus. But the interest attaches to 
him that he was by many declared to be the prototype of 
Mr. Dombey. Curiously enough, that statement crops up 
occasionally in these days, despite the fact that Forster de- 
clares that "few things could be more absurd or unfounded." 

Charles Reade, we are told by the Editors of Dickens's 
Letters was held as a writer and as a friend in the highest 
regard. Of the friendship, however, we have no record. It 
was not until fairly late in Dickens's life, that they became 
acquainted — I wonder if it was through Wilkie Collins? 
We have at least one record of Reade staying at Gadshill. 
"Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins are here," Dickens wrote 
to James T. Fields in September 1867, "and the joke of 
the time is to feel my pulse when I appear at table, and 
also to inveigle innocent messengers to come over to the 
summer house ... to ask, with their compliments, how I 
find myself now." In 1863, Reade's "Hard Cash" appeared 
in All the Year Round. 

There is one little story of Reade which may well be 



SOME LESSER FRIENDSHIPS 321 

retold here. It is related by Justin McCarthy, who says 
that an American friend of his asked Reade to go to 
America on a lecturing tour. Reade expressed himself as 
willing, but asked how much Dickens had. He was told, 
and he said that he would go for that amount. It was 
pointed out that Dickens's success had been something be- 
yond all comparison or competition, but Reade insisted, 
and — the tour did not come off. Most likely this was just 
his eccentric way of refusing to undertake a tour. Of 
course, he was an eccentric, but his heart was sound enough, 
and so he was exactly the sort of man that would appeal 
to Dickens. 

I have doubted whether Samuel Carter Hall should have 
a place in the Dickens circle. His wife was certainly counted 
a friend, but I am pretty sure he was not, though he was 
fairly well acquainted with the novelist. If one were to 
sit down to imagine the sort of man that Dickens would 
not like, the effort would cease when Hall came to mind. 
Listen to Samuel Carter Hall talking about Ainsworth's 
Jack Sheppard: "It became a sort of sacred book to 
the ruffians, demireps, and all who were dishonestly or im- 
morally inclined amongst the lowest orders, and in fact 
made as well as encouraged thieves and other moral social 
pests of society. I hope before he died 'he repented of this 
evil.' God gave him time in which to do so." And he speaks 
of Walter Savage Landor as "the hoary old sinner." In 
the big gallery he gives us of the great men he has known, 
he has not an unqualified good word to say of half a dozen. 
I accept unhesitatingly the assertion that he was the pro- 
totype of Pecksniff. I do not mean that Hall was a rogue, 
or a humbug; but he was a moral man, oh, so moral! In 
all mannerisms, methods of speech, in all the touches by 
which we know our Pecksniff, that character is a perfect 
reflection of the Hall that is self-revealed in his own writ- 
ings. Friend of Dickens ! The thought is preposterous ! 

He had been in his early days a reporter in the Gallery 
for "The British Press," and he tells us that "Now and 
then came to the office a smart, intelligent active lad who 
brought what was then called, and is still, I believe, named 
'Penny-a-line stuff' ; that is to say, notices of accidents, fires, 
police reports, such as escaped the more regular reporters, 



322 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

for which a penny a printed line was paid. The lad to 
whom I refer was that Charles Dickens whose name not 
very long afterwards became known to and honoured by 
the half of humankind." But as Hall definitely fixes this 
at 1826, when Dickens was only fourteen years old, I am 
like the Scotchman, "I ha'e ma doots." Nevertheless, the 
two were certainly acquainted in early days. 

Mrs. Hall was a good woman, with none of her husband's 
failings; and she was a clever woman, too — a clever journal- 
ist and novelist. For her Dickens certainly did entertain 
feelings of friendship, and perhaps — who knows? — some- 
times tolerated her husband for her sake. She often visited 
his house, and she has left some pleasing impressions of 
those visits. 

Just two or three others may be mentioned with whom 
there were hearty friendships, who were frequent guests at 
Dickens's house. Isambard Brunei is classed by Forster 
with several with whom Dickens's intercourse was intimate 
and frequent, and we know that he was often a welcome 
guest at the novelist's table. With him we may place Horace 
Twiss, Mowbray Morris, John Harwick, Dr. Quin, and 
others. 

There are one or two foreigners who may be mentioned 
in this place, who cannot be claimed as in the real sense 
friends of Dickens, but whom he knew well, for whose work 
and characters he had high esteem. With Giuseppe Mazzini 
he became acquainted through giving money to a begging 
impostor who made unauthorised use of the great Italian's 
name. They became pretty well known to each other. 
Dickens, it is not surprising to learn, had a great regard 
for Mazzini's worth and character, and a genuine sympathy 
with his ideals. When the Republic of Rome fell in 1849, 
Dickens proved his sympathy with the cause very em- 
phatically, by penning "an appeal to the English People" 
on behalf of the refugees who came to this country. In 
the previous year, ere Mazzini had left England on this 
unsuccessful enterprise, one Sunday evening was made 
memorable (as Forster puts it) by the Italian taking the 
novelist and his friend to see the school he had established 
in Clerkenwell for Italian organ boys. On that evening 



SOME LESSER FRIENDSHIPS 323 

Mazzini had dined at Dickens's house, and in after years he 
was many times a guest there. 

Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo were but acquaint- 
ances. Dickens dined with the former in Paris in 1847, 
as well as with Eugene Sue, and other famous Frenchmen. 
In that same year he was received by Victor Hugo "with 
infinite courtesy and grace." Forster, who was present, 
says that the great French writer "talked of his childhood 
in Spain, and of his father having been Governor of the 
Tagus in Napoleon's wars; spoke warmly of the English 
people and their literature. . . . To Dickens he addressed 
very charming flattery, in the best taste ; and my friend 
long remembered the enjoyment of that evening." 

There were other famous Frenchmen whom Dickens met, 
but we need not name them — except, perhaps Alphonse 
Lamartine, with whom, Forster tells us, there was much 
friendly intercourse during that stay in Paris in 1847. 



CHAPTER LXII 

A BIG GROUP OF ARTISTS 

Prominent in the Dickens circle was a big group of 
artists. We have already met many of these; let us now 
shake hands with a few more. 

First, there is Charles Robert Leslie. For a good many 
years he was on the best of terms with Dickens. He was 
a peculiarly likeable man, and the novelist held him in high 
regard. Though born in England, he spent his boyhood 
and youth in America, and when Dickens was still in his 
'teens, he had illustrated Washington Irving, and it was 
"Geoffrey Crayon" who wrote to Dickens urging him to 
make the artist's acquaintance. He did so, and when he 
went to America in 1842 he not only carried with him a 
letter from Leslie to Irving, but also went out of his way to 
visit some of the artist's relatives. Leslie was a frequent 
and welcome visitor at Dickens's house, but he lacked social 
gifts, and his unassuming nature kept him in the back- 
ground. He was often one of the company on the occasions 
of the theatrical performances, and if he took no active 
part in them, he has left us the best picture of Dickens as 
an actor that we possess — "Portrait of Charles Dickens, 
Esq., in the character of Captain Bobadil," painted in 
1846. 

E. M. Ward was another well-liked friend, and a frequent 
visitor to Dickens's house. The first mention of him in 
connection with the novelist that I can find relates to the 
year 1851, when he designed the card of membership for 
the Guild of Literature and Art. Three years later Dickens 
sat to him for a portrait — one of a series of oil sketches 
of the famous literary men of the day in their studies. In 
this latter year also Ward and his wife visited Boulogne 
and Paris with the novelist and his wife. In a London news- 

324 




Chables Dickens 

(1859) 
From a Painting by W. P. Frith, R.A. 



A BIG GROUP OF ARTISTS 325 

paper the artist's widow only recently recalled her memories 
of that trip. 

On that occasion Mrs. Ward also related an incident 
which occurred at Dickens's house in which George Cruik- 
shank figured unpleasantly. "Cruikshank," she wrote, "had 
suddenly developed a mania for total abstinence, and seeing 
me about to sip a glass of wine snatched the glass from me, 
to dash it on the floor. I had never seen Dickens so angry. 
To Cruikshank he said, 'How dare you touch Mrs. Ward's 
glass? It is an unpardonable liberty. What do you mean? 
Because some one you know was a drunkard for forty years, 
surely it is not for you to object to an innocent glass of 
sherry !' Cruikshank, one of the largest-hearted creatures 
in the world — but given to acting on impulse — was too 
taken aback to reply, and he disappeared for the rest of 
that very pleasant evening." 

W. P. Frith was a greatly liked friend. He was a young 
man when his excellent paintings of Dolly Varden brought 
about an acquaintance with Dickens, whom he worshipped, 
as did most of the young men of the time. He has himself 
told the story of the friendship that ensued, and to his 
account there is really nothing to add. From his earliest 
days he was an enthusiastic lover of Dickens's books, and 
sought for a subject in them that would lend itself to his 
brush, but he was held back by the ugliness of modern 
dress. But with the appearance of Barnaby Rudge he dis- 
covered what he sought in the person of Dolly Varden. He 
painted her in a variety of attitudes, and all the pictures 
found ready purchasers, though for small sums. Then, in 
November 1842, he received the following letter from 
Dolly's creator: 

"My dear Sir, 

"I shall be very glad if you will do me the 
favour to paint me two little companion pictures; one 
a Dolly Varden (whom you have so exquisitely done 
already), the other a Kate Nickleby." 

The artist was transported with delight. "Mother and 
I," he says, "cried over that letter, and the wonder is that 
anything is left of it, for I showed it to every friend I 



326 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

had, and was admired and envied by all." He set to work 
with a will, and the pictures delighted Dickens, who paid 
£40 for the pair, which, after his death, fetched 1300 
guineas at Christie's. 

Henceforth Frith basked in the sunshine of Dickens's 
friendship, and was a frequent and welcome visitor at the 
novelist's house. To the end of his life he remained almost 
an idolater. "The reading of Dickens's works," he says, 
"has no doubt engendered a love for the writer in thousands 
of hearts. How that affection would have been increased 
could his readers have had personal knowledge of the man 
can only be known to those who, like myself, had the happi- 
ness of his intimate acquaintance." i 

In 1859 Forster asked Frith to paint a portrait of 
Dickens for him. He had made the suggestion in 1854, but 
Dickens had grown a moustache, and his friend had decided 
to wait : "This is a whim — the fancy will pass. We will 
wait till the hideous disfigurement is removed." The fancy 
did not pass, however, and the moustache was followed by 
a beard, and at last Forster gave it up as hopeless and 
commissioned the picture. It was while Dickens was sitting 
for this that he told Frith that a Library Edition of his 
works was to be published, and the artist begged to be 
allowed to be an illustrator. Dickens agreed, and Frith 
chose Little Dorrit, for which he did two small pictures. 
Dickens presented him with a complete set of the edition. 

Of the portrait nothing needs to be said here. It is one 
of the best known of all the portraits of the novelist, and it 
is interesting because it is the first showing him with the 
beard. Dickens is said to have remarked of it that it made 
him look as if he had just heard that the house of his 
next-door neighbour, with whom he was on bad terms, was 
on fire ! But he liked it, all the same, and it pleased Forster, 
so that it cannot have been other than a good portrait. 

A genuine, though not very intimate friendship was that 
with John Everett Millais, the lifelong friend of Charles 
Allston Collins, brother of Wilkie, and later Dickens's son- 
in-law. It was at Collins's house on April 18, 1852, that 
he met the novelist. 

Dickens must have had some uncomfortable thoughts 
when he met the two Pre-Raphaelites, for in June 1850 he 



A BIG GROUP OF ARTISTS 327 

had written an article in Household Words entitled New 
Lamps for Old Ones, in which he had dealt with the Pre- 
Raphaelites with special reference to Millais's picture, "The 
Carpenter's Shop." It is worth while quoting from that 
article, I think: 

"You will have the goodness to discharge from your 
mind all Post-Raphael ideas, all religious aspirations, 
all elevating thoughts; all tender, awful, sorrowful, 
ennobling, sacred, graceful, or beautiful associations, 
and prepare yourselves, as befits such a subject — Pre- 
Raphaelly considered — for the lowest depths of what is 
mean, odious, repulsive, and revolting. 

"You behold the interior of a carpenter's shop. In 
the foreground of that carpenter's shop is a hideous, 
wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown ; 
who appears to have received a poke in the hand from 
the stick of another boy with whom he has been play- 
ing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for 
the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in 
her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any 
human creature to exist for a moment with that dis- 
located throat) she would stand out from the rest of 
the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in 
France, or the lowest gin-shop in England. Two 
almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, 
worthy companions of this agreeable female, are work- 
ing at their trade; a boy, with some small flavour of 
humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; 
and nobody is paying any attention to a snuffy old 
woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the 
tobacconist's next door, and to be hopelessly waiting 
at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her 
favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express 
ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it ex- 
pressed. Such men as the carpenters might be un- 
dressed in any hospital where dirty drunkards, in a 
high state of varicose veins, are received." 

This is very interesting because of the facts that within 
a few months of the publication of that article Dickens was 



328 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

to meet the painter thus abused, and to form a friendship 
with him ; that within ten years another of the Brotherhood 
was to marry his daughter; and that within twenty years 
he was to select a Pre-Raphaelite as the illustrator of his 
last book. For, as all the world knows, it was Dickens's 
wish that C. A. Collins should illustrate Edwin Drood. 
Which leads to another interesting fact; namely, that when 
Collins found himself unable, on account of ill-health, to 
proceed with the task, a young man named Luke Fildes 
was selected to take his place entirely on the earnest recom- 
mendation of the painter of "The Carpenter's Shop" ! 

In 1860 — the year that she became Mrs. Collins — 
Dickens's daughter served Millais for a model for one of 
his best pictures, "The Black Brunswicker." Ten years 
later the artist did a picture, not so well known, but much 
more interesting from the present point of view. His son, 
speaking of Dickens's death, says that Millais had "long 
entertained a tender regard for the novelist." He was one 
of the privileged few admitted to the dining-room at Gadshill 
while the great man lay dead, and his picture of Dickens 
on his death-bed is one of the best things he ever did. 

He intended at first, we are told, to make it a little out- 
line drawing only, but the features of the novelist struck 
him as being so calm and beautiful in death that he ended 
by making a finished portrait. He gave it to his old friend's 
wife — Kate Dickens. 

It should be recorded that in 1886 Millais did an ad- 
mirable picture of Little Nell and her Grandfather — so far 
as I have been able to trace, the only occasion on which he 
went to the Dickens's books for inspiration. 

Holman Hunt was well acquainted with Dickens, but he 
was not so much a friend of Dickens's as a friend of 
Dickens's son-in-law. For, of course, he was a lifelong in- 
timate of Charles Collins, at whose wedding to Kate Dickens 
in 1860 he was a guest. 

The novelist knew the great Turner, as we have seen, 
but the only meeting of the pair actually recorded was that 
already noted in our chapter on Carlyle, on the occasion 
of the dinner prior to Dickens's departure for Italy in 
1844. Another famous artist who was often a guest at 
Dickens's table was Sir Charles Eastlake. There were 







Tom Smart and the Chair 
From a Sketch for "The Pickwick Papers" by John Leech 



A BIG GROUP OF ARTISTS 329 

others, too, but with only one more have we any real in- 
terest. 

Luke Fildes was but a young man when he first knew 
the novelist with whose name his own is indissolubly linked, 
and he knew him for only a few months, but in that time 
Dickens had learned to regard him as a friend, and he had 
learned to love the great writer. The young artist had, 
of course, already achieved some distinction in his profession 
before he was selected to illustrate Edwin Drood. He was 
twenty-five years old then, and had already exhibited at 
the Royal Academy, whilst he was known as a magazine 
illustrator. I believe, indeed, that it was the excellence of 
one of his pictures in "The Graphic" that struck Millais, 
who went to Dickens with "I've found the very man you 
want." The choice was the happiest Dickens ever made. 
Better work than Fildes's illustrations to Edwin Drood was 
never done for any of his books, and that is saying much. 

Of the personal relations of Dickens and his last illus- 
trator there is very little to be said. They had known one 
another for only a few months when the novelist was struck 
down. That sorrowful event occurred on a Wednesday 
evening. On the following morning Dickens was to have 
gone to London for the remainder of the week, and he was 
to have been accompanied on his return by the young artist, 
whose visit had been arranged so that he might become ac- 
quainted with the neighbourhood in which most of the scenes 
in the books were laid. We know that he was to have ac- 
companied the novelist to Maidstone gaol, there to see the 
condemned cell, with a view to a subsequent illustration. 

Dickens had formed a great liking for the artist, and had 
a very high opinion indeed of his genius. On the other side 
there was that admiration and reverence which Dickens never 
failed to inspire in young men. A few years ago Sir Luke 
Fildes gave expression to his regard for the novelist in 
an indignant letter he wrote to "The Times." A reviewer 
of Andrew Lang's book, The Puzzle of Dickens's Last 
Plot, had suggested that the hints dropped by Dickens to 
Forster and to members of his family as to the plot, 
might have been intentionally misleading. "I know Charles 
Dickens was very anxious that his secret should not be 
guessed," wrote Sir Luke in reply, "but it surprises me to 



330 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

read that he could be thought capable of the deceit so 
lightly attributed to him." Then he related how Dickens 
had told him in confidence that Jasper was to strangle 
Drood, and he concluded: 

"I was impressed by his earnestness, as, indeed, I 
was at all my interviews with him . . . and it is a 
little startling, after more than thirty-five years of 
profound belief in the nobility of character and sin- 
cerity of Charles Dickens, to be told now that he 
probably was more or less of a humbug on such occa- 
sions." 

That profound belief in the nobility of Dickens's char- 
acter has always remained with Sir Luke Fildes. 

Immediately after Dickens's death Sir Luke painted his 
famous picture "The Empty Chair," showing the study at 
Gadshill as it was left by the novelist when he laid down 
his pen for ever. That picture was engraved on wood, and 
published by "The Graphic" in December 1870. Copies 
of that engraving are now very rare, and are greatly valued 
by Dickensians. Sir Luke also did a drawing of the novel- 
ist's grave. 



CHAPTER LXm 

HENEY FOTHEBGILIi CHORLEY 

On June 7, 1870, Charles Dickens wrote a letter to Henry 
Fothergill Chorley, the famous musical critic; on the 9th 
Chorley heard that Dickens was ill; on the 10th he heard 
of his friend's death. "Chorley's mental prostration when 
I called upon him shortly afterwards," says his biographer, 
Mr. Henry G. Hewlett, "was painful to witness." Writing 
to Benson Rathbone at the time, Chorley said: "God bless 
you for your kindness. For the hour I am best alone. . . . 
I had a letter from poor Mary. 1 If universal sympathy of 
the warmest kind in every form could soften the agony of 
such a trial they will have it in overflowing measure, but 
it will not give back one of the noblest and most gifted men 
I have ever known, whose regard for me was one of those 
honours which make amends for much failure and disap- 
pointment. I cannot express to any human being the void 
this will make for me to my dying day." 

There was no exaggeration in this, for Mary Dickens 
tells us: "After my father's death, and before we left the 
dear old home, Mr. Chorley wrote and asked me if I would 
send him a branch off each of our large cedar trees in re- 
membrance of the place. My friend, and his dear friend 
Mr. Lehman, saw him lying calm and peaceful in his coffin 
with a large green branch on each side of him. He did 
not understand what this meant, but I did, and was much 
touched, as, of course, he had given orders that these 
branches should be laid with him in his coffin. So a piece 
of the place he loved so much for its dear master's sake 
went down to the grave with him." 

Chorley is a figure calling for sympathy. He was a good 

man who went through life lonely, missing love; he suffered 

many sorrows and many trials, and he found in Charles 

» Dickons'a eldest daughter, Mamie. 

331 



332 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Dickens a very true friend who understood and sympathised. 
The brightest part of his later years, Mr. Hewlett tells 
us, was that which was illumined by his friendship with 
Dickens. They became intimate in 1854, but they had met 
some years before that. During the last few years of the 
novelist's life they were in constant correspondence, and Mr. 
Hewlett says: "There was probably no other man of 
letters, with the exception of Forster, to whom his confidence 
was so entirely given. Amid many differences of mental and 
moral constitution there was one salient feature in common. 
In Dickens the quality of punctuality, as Chorley used to 
describe it, was manifest in the minutest particulars. He 
himself was less scrupulously methodical; but in all essential 
points his thorough trustworthiness was equally prominent. 
. . . Though both the friends were probably self-conscious 
of possessing this characteristic, it seems to have been to 
each the object of special admiration in the other. Both 
recognised in one another the presence of generous can- 
dor. . . ." 

Mr. Hewlett adds: 

"Such other relics of Dickens's large correspondence 
with him as Chorley has preserved . . . attest the 
thorough sympathy that subsisted between the two. On 
no occasion of his life when he needed help great or 
small, whether consolation under affliction, counsel in 
the settlement of a dispute, or as to the adaptation 
of his voice to a lecture-room, did Dickens fail to 
render it. More than once during those years, when, 
bowed down by weight of loneliness, ill-health and sor- 
row, he was absorbed in moods of utter depression or 
driven to adopt the most fatal of expedients for re- 
moving it, the clear healthy sense of Dickens was felt 
by him as a tower of strength; and it was doubtless 
a remembrance of the influence extended at such times 
that dictated the language of a grateful bequest to his 
friend as one by whom he had been 'greatly helped.' " 

The bequest referred to was £50 for a ring. Alas ! 
Dickens had gone before his friend. There was also a be- 
quest to Mamie Dickens of £200 a year for life. 

We have seen that Dickens and Chorley became intimate 



HENRY FOTHERGILL CHORLEY 333 

in 1854. Mamie Dickens tells us that the intimacy was 
brought about by their working together to obtain a pen- 
sion for two literary friends. Chorley was always a very 
welcome guest at Gadshill. Says the novelist's eldest 
daughter : 

"People who were in the habit of seeing Mr. Chorley 
only in London would hardly have known him at Gads- 
hill, I think. He was a brighter and another being 
altogether there. ... I believe he loved my father 
better than any man in the world ; was grateful to him 
for his friendship, and truly proud of possessing it, 
which he certainly did to a very large amount. My 
father was very fond of him, and had the greatest 
respect for his honest, straightforward, upright and 
generous character. I think, and am very glad to 
think, that the happiest days of Mr. Chorley's life — 
his later years, that is to say — were passed at Gads- 
hill." 

Chorley at Gadshill. How many of his London friends 
could have pictured him as an amateur actor convulsing 
an audience with his comicalities ! Yet so it was — at 
Gadshill. In No. 15 of "The Gad's Hill Gazette" we read 
of an entertainment "given by Messrs. H. and E. Dickens 
in the Theatre Royal Club Room." The farce, The Rival 
Volunteers, was played; Mr. H. Dickens "managed" the 
orchestra, Mr. E. Dickens was stage manager, and "C. 
Dickens, Esq., as an aged gentleman, and H. E. Chorley, 
Esq., as a Turk, were intensely comic, and between all the 
scenes the laughter (caused by these gentlemen) was in- 
cessant." 

If Dickens was whole-hearted in his encouragement of 
Chorley in his literary work, he, in his turn, valued very 
highly indeed his friend's opinion of his own books. Chorley 
reviewed in the "Athenaeum" Martin Chuzzlewit, David Cop- 
per field, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, and Our Mutual 
Friend. In regard to his review of the last-named book, 
Dickens wrote to him: "I have seen the 'Athenaeum,' and 
most heartily and earnestly thank you. Trust me, there 
is nothing I could have wished away, and all that I read 
there affects and delights me." 



CHAPTER LXiy 



WILKIE COLLINS 



The great friend of Dickens's later years was William 
Wilkie Collins, for whom he entertained a regard that was 
quite exceptional and, to me, somewhat difficult of explana- 
tion. It was not merely a friendship in the ordinary sense; 
he came under Collins's spell to a remarkable degree, and 
one of the most astonishing of literary facts is the influence 
which the younger man exercised over the art of one who 
was famous and the acknowledged first of the living novelists 
before he himself had left school. It is true, of course, 
that in so far as Dickens owed anything to anybody, he 
was chiefly indebted to Fielding and Smollett, but as he 
drew towards the close of his life the influence of those two 
masters gave way to that of a young writer who was his 
inferior in every respect save one, and never succeeded in 
crossing the line which divides the great writers from the 
first-class writers. Dickens recognised Collins's wonderful 
skill at plot construction and magnified its value and im- 
portance. It was the spell of Collins, undoubtedly, that 
prompted him to endeavour in Edwin Drood to prove him- 
self an expert mystery unraveller, and it is equally beyond 
question that "if that book had been finished it would have 
shown that the pupil was at least the equal of his teacher." 
But even so, can we honestly say that we are glad of 
Collins's influence as revealed by this book? Frankly, I 
see no cause for gratitude to the author of The Woman 
in White. I am not blind, I hope, to the art of this book, 
but I see little more than suggestions of those qualities that 
made Dickens famous and loved. Edwin Drood is a great 
fragment, but it is not the Dickens that will live — the 
Dickens of this book is not the great character drawer, the 
great en j oyer of life, the great friend of humanity that is 

334 



WILKIE COLLINS 335 

revealed in every one of his other books, from Pickwick to 
Our Mutual Friend. 

It may be that I misjudge Collins, but I confess that I 
find it at least as difficult to account for the affection in 
which he was held by Dickens. We are told by one writer 
that he was "highly gifted socially," and we are forced to 
believe that there was more in the man than any writer has 
revealed, yet all my reading has failed to make me believe 
that there was that lovablcness about him that there was 
about the other members of the inner Dickens circle ; it has 
only gone, indeed, to confirm the opinion expressed by Mr. 
Percy Fitzgerald: "I always think that Dickens's noble, 
unselfish, generous nature expanded itself somewhat vainly 
on such a character, certainly not endowed with anything 
likely to respond to such affection. Not that I knew him 
sufficiently to judge him, but he had not the warm and 
rather romantic tone of feeling that Boz looked for." 

Still, there is the fact; Dickens had a genuine affection 
for Wilkie Collins. "You know," he wrote, "I am not in 
the habit of making professions, but I have so strong an 
interest in you, and so true a regard for you, that nothing 
can come amiss in the way of information as to your well- 
doing." 

It was through Egg that the two novelists first became 
acquainted. It was in connection with the performance of 
Not So Bad as we Seem at Devonshire House. Forster 
tells us that Collins became "for all the rest of the life of 
Dickens, one of his dearest and most valued friends." He 
went with the company on tour, and in addition to Smart, 
in Lytton's comedy, played James, in Used Up, and 
Lithers in Mr. Nightingale's Diary. His love for the 
stage must have been almost as great as Dickens's and 
Mark Lemon's. They acted together many times, two of 
Collins's plays were specially written for and produced at 
Tavistock House, and they collaborated in the dramatisa- 
tion of No Thoroughfare, the last of the famous Christmas 
numbers of All the Year Round, of which they were joint 
authors. 

Let us deal with these stage associations first. In 1855 
the first of the children's plays was produced at Tavistock 
House. This was Fortunio. In the same year Collins 



336 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

wrote The Lighthouse, which was produced on June 19, 
and repeated at Campden House in July for the benefit of 
the Bournemouth Sanatorium for Consumptive Patients. 
Collins himself played the second Light-keeper. 

Two years later came The Frozen Deep. Again 
Dickens wrote the Prologue, which was recited by Forster, 
but the original manuscript and the prompt-book reveal 
that he also contributed much to the play itself. The manu- 
script was sold by auction in 1890 and realised 300 guineas. 
To it was appended the following note in Collins's hand- 
writing: "Mr. Dickens himself played the principal part 
and played it with a truth, vigour, and pathos never to be 
forgotten by those who were fortunate enough to witness 
it. . . . At Manchester this play was twice performed, on 
the second evening before 3000 people. This was, I think, 
the finest of all its representations. . . . Dickens surpassed 
himself. He literally electrified the audience." 

The two novelists had close literary, as well as stage, 
associations. Few wrote more frequently for Household 
Words and All the Year Round than Wilkie Collins, whilst he 
collaborated with Dickens several times, more especially in 
connection with the Christmas numbers. His first story for 
Household Words was "Sister Rose," which appeared in 
April and May 1855, and which Dickens described as "an ex- 
cellent story, charmingly written, and showing everywhere an 
amount of pains and study in respect of the art of doing 
such things that I see mighty seldom." It may be that here 
is one of the chief reasons for Dickens's admiration for 
Collins. The young writer possessed qualities of hard work 
and thoroughness, and few things appealed to Dickens more 
than "thorough-going earnestness." In 1856, "After Dark" 
and "The Diary of Anne Rodway" appeared in Household 
Words, and in the following year came "The Dead Secret." 

In September 1857 Dickens and Collins made a tour to 
the North of England together for the purpose of writing 
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices. "I have arranged 
with Collins," wrote Dickens to Forster, "that he and I 
will start next Monday on a ten or twelve days' expedition 
to out-of-the-way places, to do (in inns and coast-corners) 
a little tour in search of an article and in avoidance of 
railroads. . . . Our decision is for a foray upon the fells 



WILKIE COLLINS 337 

of Cumberland, I having discovered in the books some 
promising moors and bleak places thereabout." And so they 
went to the Lake District, but their trip was spoiled by 
a mishap which befell Collins, who sprained his ankle during 
the descent of Carrick Fell. 

They completed their tour, however, and their account 
of it duly appeared in Household Words. The Lazy Tour 
is an unsatisfactory piece of work, and I never read it but 
I am glad that the desire that Dickens cherished for some 
time, that he and Collins should collaborate in the writing 
of a novel, was never realised. It is astonishing how Dickens, 
in this book, allowed his own personality to sink almost 
out of sight. 

In 1858 Household Words came to an end, and in the 
following year All the Year Round was started. Its first 
serial was A Tale of Two Cities, and this was followed by 
The Woman in White, which commenced on November 
26. This, of course, was the book that finally established 
Collins as a novelist, and it also did much to establish the 
magazine in which it appeared. No Name ran as a serial 
in 1861, and of this Dickens wrote: "It is as far before 
and beyond The Woman in White as that was beyond the 
common level of fiction writing. Later came Armadale, 
and finally The Moonstone. And by this time Dickens 
was tiring of Collins's style — tiring of the constant creaking 
of machinery. In a letter respecting The Woman in 
White, he had put his finger right on his friend's weak- 
ness, the weakness which keeps Collins out of the first rank. 
He had written: 

"I seem to have noticed, here and there, that the 
great pains you take express themselves a trifle too 
much, and you know that I always contest your dis- 
position to give an audience credit for nothing. . . . 
Perhaps I express my meaning best when I say that 
the three people who write the narratives in these 
proofs have a Dissective property in common, which 
is essentially not theirs but yours ; and that my own 
effort would be to strike more of what is got that way 
out of them by collision with one another, and by the 
working of the story." 



338 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

And now he wrote to a friend, "I quite agree with you 
about The Moonstone. The construction is wearisome 
beyond endurance, and there is a vein of obstinate conceit 
in it that makes enemies of readers." 

Collins had a hand in nearly all the Christmas numbers. 
He first appeared as the Fourth Traveller in The Seven 
Poor Travellers, 1854. In the following year he assisted 
with The Holly-Tree Inn, and in 1856 he wrote John Stead- 
man* s Account of the Wreck of the Golden Mary, and also 
The Deliverance. In 1857 he wrote the second chapter 
of The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, Dickens writing 
the remainder of the number, and in the last Household 
Words Christmas number — A House to Let — he was the 
author of Over the Way and Trottle's Report, whilst 
he and Dickens collaborated in the final chapter, Let at 
Last. 

His contributions to the All the Year Round Christmas 
numbers were to follow: To The Haunted House in 1859 
The Ghost in the Cupboard Room; to A Message from 
the Sea, 1860, TJie Seafaring Man, and, in collaboration 
with Dickens, The Money and The Restitution; to Tom 
Tiddler's Ground in 1861 Picking up Waifs and Strays; 
and he collaborated with Dickens in the last of the series — 
No Thoroughfare — in 1867. When the friends were writing 
A Message from the Sea, they made a special trip to Corn- 
wall and Devon in search of local colour. It should be 
noted that they evidently intended to dramatise this story, 
because there is in the British Museum a small brochure 
whose title-page runs thus: 

A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA 
A Drama in Three Acta 

by 
Chables Dickens 

and 
Wilkie Collins 

An Outline of the Plot 

London. — Published by G. Holsworth 

At the office of "All the Year Round.'J 

Wellington Street, Strand, 

1861. 



WILKIE COLLINS 339 

This manuscript traces the plot and action of Acts 1 
and 2, and then "Act the Third passes in Tregarthen's 
cottage at Steepways and the story is unravelled as in the 
Christmas number of 'All the Year Round,' concluding the 
scene in Chapter V, 'The Retribution,' and ending with the 
villagers all coming in and cheering Captain Jorgan on his 
departure for America as heartily as they execrated him 
in Act 1." A list of the characters is also given. 

And now let us glance briefly at the personal relations 
of these two novelists. Strangely enough, there is very little 
material, though from 1851 they were so intimate. They 
spent many holidays together. Their first trip was in 1853, 
when they went to Switzerland and Italy accompanied by 
Egg and had a good time. In February 1855 they made 
a short trip to Paris. Exactly a year later they were in 
Paris again, and in the summer of 1856, when the Dickens 
family were living at the Villa de Moulineaux, Boulogne, 
Collins joined them, and for many weeks took up his quarters 
in a little cottage in the grounds. In 1859 Dickens spent 
a short holiday with Collins and his brother at Broadstairs. 
But, though they spent all these holidays together, there 
is no evidence in Dickens's letters of that abandonment to 
pleasure-making that appears in letters respecting tours 
with other friends. There are very few of those merry, 
school-boyish letters to Collins such as Dickens wrote to 
many other friends, his letters to this friend reflecting a 
restraint which is very rare in his correspondence. There 
is plenty of friendship, of course, but he rarely "lets him- 
self go" as in his letters to other friends. Very often he 
protests his friendship, however, and once he proves his 
sincerity. Here is that letter: 

"Frank Beard has been here this evening . . . and 
has told me that you are not at all well, and how he 
has given you something which he hopes and believes 
will bring you round. It is not to convey this in- 
significant piece of intelligence, or to tell you how 
anxious I am that you should come up with a wet 
sheet and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we 
are not sick), that I write. It is simply to say what 
follows, which I hope may save you some mental un- 



340 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

easiness. For I was stricken ill when I was doing 
'Bleak House,' and I shall not easily forget what I 
suffered under the fear of not being able to come up 
to time. 

"Dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from 
your mind. Write to me at Paris at any moment, 
and say you are unequal to your work, and want me, 
and I will come to London straight and do your work. 
I am quite confident that, with your notes and a few 
words of explanation, I could take it up at any time 
and do it. Absurdly unnecessary to say that it would 
be a makeshift ! But I could do it at a pinch, so 
like you as that no one should find out the difference. 
Don't make much of this offer in your mind; it is 
nothing, except to ease it. If you should want help, 
I am as safe as the bank. The trouble would be nothing 
to me, and the triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. 
Think it a Christmas number, an 'Idle Apprentice,' a 
'Lighthouse,' a 'Frozen Deep.' I am as ready as in 
any of these cases to strike in and hammer the hot iron 
out. 

"You won't want me. You will be well (and thank- 
less!) in no time. But there I am; and I hope that 
the knowledge may be a comfort to you. Call me, 
and I come." 

The help was not needed, but the offer was made in good 
faith, and is as good evidence as one could need of the 
regard that Dickens had for Wilkie Collins. 



CHAPTER LXV 

DICKENS AS AN EDITOR HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH W. H. WILLS 

Now we come to a famous — I had almost said historic — 
group of friends — those who were associated with the novel- 
ist mainly, if not entirely, through Household Words and 
All the Year Round. A great deal has been written about 
Dickens as an Editor, and all the writers agree that in that 
capacity he had altogether exceptional qualities. His out- 
standing quality was his — shall we call it knack? — of dis- 
covering talent. Perhaps it cannot be claimed that he 
"discovered" Henry Morley, for Morley had already at- 
tracted Forster's attention, and it was Forster who recom- 
mended him to Dickens; nor did he "discover" Charles 
Knight, for Knight was famous long before Household 
Words came into being; he scarcely "discovered" Mrs. 
Lynn Linton, for she had established a fairly good reputa- 
tion before he gave her a better and wider public than she 
had had hitherto; Harriet Martineau was famous before 
Pickwick was written. But George Augustus Sala owed his 
first chance to Dickens and Household Words; Percy Fitz- 
gerald, J. C. Parkinson, W. Moy Thomas, Charles Kent, 
John Hollingshead — to name but a few of the best known 
— owed their first recognition and subsequent success to 
Dickens's ability to "spot" talent, and to his encourage- 
ment. As "Dickens's young men" they came to be known, 
and as "Dickens's young men" some of them will be remem- 
bered for long years to come. 

And when we consider Dickens as an Editor we quickly 
realise one of the great differences between modern journal- 
ism and that of half a century ago. Contributions to 
Household Words and All the Year Round were, almost 
without exception, unsigned, and contributors had only the 

341 



342 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

merit of their work to stand upon. The magazines them- 
selves, likewise, had to stand or fall upon the intrinsic 
merit of their contents. To-day the prospectus of a new 
magazine invariably contains a list of names of well-known 
writers who have promised to contribute. It does not matter 
though some of them "slap off" anything anyhow; it does 
not matter though some of their contributions would have 
no chance of acceptance if submitted anoirymously. The 
Editor relies upon their names. And if it be urged that 
these people "had to make their names," it can be answered 
soundly enough that in these days of commercialised journal- 
ism "names" may be easily made. 

But all this by the way. Another noteworthy fact — and 
the fact with which we are primarily concerned — in regard 
to Dickens as an Editor is the personal relations that ex- 
isted between him and his staff, some of whom became much 
loved personal friends. I do not propose to write of his 
relations with them all; some of them could not legitimately 
be described as of the Dickens circle. But a few of them 
undoubtedly were very welcome members of what may be 
termed the later Dickens circle. With most of these we may 
deal quite briefly; a few are entitled to chapters to them- 
selves. 

First of all there is W. H. Wills, sub-editor, assistant 
editor of both papers. There were few men for whom 
Dickens had a higher regard. Their association originally 
was entirely of a business nature, but Wills proved himself 
so trustworthy, and showed such a regard for his employer, 
that a friendship developed, and in the last years of his 
life there was no one, Forster excepted, in whom Dickens 
placed more trust and confidence. Their acquaintance be- 
gan with the birth of the "Daily News" in 1846, but nearly 
ten years before that there had been an association. For 
in 1837 Wills sent two articles to "Bentley's Miscellany," 
and Dickens, as Editor, accepted one and invited further 
contributions. 

Wills was a member of the original staff of the "Daily 
News." He was Dickens's right hand, and acted as the 
Editor's secretary. Dickens occupied the editorial chair 
only three weeks, but in that short time he had realised 
Wills's reliability, and shortly after his resignation we find 




W. H. Wills 
From a Drawing in Possession of the Proprietors of "Punch' 



DICKENS AS AN EDITOR 343 

him writing : "I miss you a great deal more than I miss 
the paper." And Wills continued to act as his almoner. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that when Forster recom- 
mended Wills as sub-editor of Household Words Dickens 
should have acquiesced gladly, and never was a happier 
appointment made. Dickens was supreme, and exercised 
a very full supervision, but all details were left to Wills, 
in whom the utmost reliance was placed, and during the 
reading tours the control was necessarily almost entirely 
in his hands. They worked together, we are told by the 
Editors of The Letters of Charles Dickens, "on terms of 
the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence, and 
affectionate regard, until Mr. Wills's health made it neces- 
sary for him to retire from the work in 1868." As time 
passed, Dickens leaned on Wills more and more. He found 
in his assistant, not only a good journalist, but a com- 
petent man of business, a man of perception to whom it 
was necessary but to indicate a wish in the vaguest way to 
see that wish carried into effect; and a tactful man capable 
of dealing with all sorts of contributors and would-be con- 
tributors, and offending none. Wills, indeed, was a positive 
godsend to Dickens. 

Presently the novelist had an opportunity of showing his 
appreciation of his assistant's loyalty. In 1856 Forster 
relinquished his share in Household Words to Dickens, who 
gave a portion of it to Wills, to whom, in answer to a 
letter of thanks, he wrote: 

"I have just received your letter and am truly 
pleased to know that you are gratified by what I have 
done respecting the share. I hoped you would be; 
and in tins and in all other ways in which I can ever 
testify my affection for you, and my sense of the 
value of your friendship and support, I merely gratify 
myself by doing what you more than merit." 

Years before this, however, he had recommended Wills 
to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts as confidential secretary, 
in which post his duty was to sec that her charitable gifts 
were properly distributed. He had also obtained for him 
the post of secretary to the Guild of Literature and Art. 



344 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

He had invited Wills to take part in the performance on 
behalf of the Guild in 1851. 

Wills declined. "I will not bore you," he wrote, "with 
all my reasons against it. One will suffice, for that is a 
strong one: there will be, I understand, not a few provin- 
cial performances ; and under present arrangements I think 
it would be extremely inexpedient for us both to be absent 
from H. W. together and as often as the performances will 
require." None the less, the objection does not seem to 
have been so very strong, for we read that he was "almost 
invariably one of the party in the provincial tour." 

Mrs. Wills, however, was associated with Dickens in some 
of his Tavistock House theatricals. In April 1856 Dickens 
wrote to her husband as follows: 

"My dear Wills, 

Christmas. 
"Collins and I have a mighty original notion 
(mine in the beginning) for another play at Tavistock 
House. I propose opening on Twelfth Night the 
theatrical season at that great establishment. But 
now a tremendous question. Is 

Mrs. Willis! 
game to do a Scotch housekeeper in a supposed coun- 
try house with Mary, Katey, Georgina, etc? If she 
can screw her courage up to saying 'Yes,' that country 
house opens the piece in a singular way, and that 
Scotch housekeeper's part shall flow from the present 
pen. If she says 'No' (but she won't) no Scotch 
housekeeper can. 1 The Tavistock House season 
of four nights pauses for a reply. Scotch song (new 
and original) of Scotch housekeeper would pervade the 
piece. 

You 
had better pause for breath." 

Mrs. Wills did consent, and played Nurse Esther in 
The Frozen Deep. 

1 Mrs. Wills was a daughter of Robert Chambers, and Dickens was design- 
ing to give her an appropriate part as a Scotchwoman. 



DICKENS AS AN EDITOR 345 

In 1859 when Household Words came to an end, and All 
the Year Round was born, Dickens and Wills became part- 
ners, the former as to three-quarters, and the latter as to 
one quarter, in profits and losses. It was agreed that 
Dickens should have £500 a year as editor, and that Wills 
should act as general manager, with control, subject to 
Dickens, of the commercial department, and also as sub- 
editor, at a salary of £420. The same old harmonious re- 
lations continued. Here, for instance, is a letter written 
by Dickens on January 2, 1862, from Birmingham station: 

"Being stranded here for an hour ... I write to 
you. 

"Firstly to reciprocate all your cordial and affec- 
tionate wishes for the New Year, and to express my 
earnest hope that we may go on through many years 
to come as we have through many years that are gone. 
And I think we can say that we doubt whether any 
two men can have gone on more happily and smoothly, 
or with greater trust and confidence in one another. 

"A little packet will come to you . . . almost at the 
same time, I think, as this note. 

"The packet will contain a claret jug. I hope it 
is a pretty thing in itself for your table, and I know 
that you and Mrs. Wills will like it none the worse 
because it comes from me. 

"It is not made of perishable material, and is so 
far expressive of our friendship. I have had your 
name and mine set upon it in token of our many years 
of mutual reliance and trustfulness. It will never be 
so full of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard." 

The business association of the two men ended with 
Wills's retirement in 1868, but the personal friendship 
lasted until Dickens's death. 

This is an appropriate place in which to deal with 
Dickens's friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Lehmann. 
Mrs. Lehmann was a niece of Mrs. Wills, and it was Wills 
who introduced her and her husband to Dickens at Shef- 
field during the "splendid strolling" on behalf of the Guild 
of Literature and Art. Their son, Mr. R. C. Lehmann, 



346 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

tells us that between his father and Dickens there was a 
special bond of intimacy, and this is undoubtedly true. We 
have, indeed, Dickens's word for it, for in a letter to 
Lytton in 1861 he wrote: "I am anxious to let you know 
that Mr. Frederick Lehmann who is coming down to Kneb- 
worth to see you ... is a particular friend of mine, for 
whom I have a very high and warm regard." The Leh- 
manns were very frequent visitors at Tavistock House and 
at Gadshill, and they were with Dickens in Paris in 1862, 
doing "a course of restaurants" with him. In Lehmann's 
unfinished reminiscences we find many references to social 
meetings with the novelist, particularly to Sunday walks. 
With the family he was always at his best, for they were 
valued friends between whom and himself there undoubtedly 
existed a very special sympathy and understanding. 



CHAPTER LXVI 



EDMUND YATES 



Greatest favourite of all the band of "Dickens's young 
men" was Edmund Yates. We are told by the Editors of 
Dickens's Letters that for Yates he had always an affec- 
tionate regard, and we know how his esteem for this young 
man led him into one of the most unfortunate acts in his 
life — the quarrel with Thackeray. I cannot but think that 
this regard for a somewhat coxcombish young man arose 
more out of his sentiment for a day that was dead than 
out of any specially appealing qualities in Yates's char- 
acter. Yates was a capable journalist, a successful novel- 
ist and lecturer, and a self-reliant man of the world. 
These were all qualities sure of recognition from Dickens 
in any young man, but they were possessed by other mem- 
bers of the band. Dickens was, as a matter of fact, 
specially inclined towards Yates because of memories of 
the days when Yates's father and mother were to him al- 
most gods to be worshipped. For this young man's parents 
were bright lights of the English stage when Dickens was 
beginning his career, and Yates senior had appeared in 
adaptations of Dickens's books. Forster tells us that 
though once at the Surrey Theatre the novelist lay on the 
floor of his box almost throughout a performance of Oliver 
Tzvist, he was able to "sit through Nichleby, and to see 
merit in parts of the representation. Mr. Yates had a 
sufficiently humorous meaning in his wildest extravagance." 

It is quite clear that this implied suggestion that 
Dickens was able more or less to tolerate Yates's perform- 
ances is not at all fair to the actor from the following 
letter quoted by the latter's son, and written by Dickens 
at the time of the Nichleby performance: 

"My dear Sir, 

"I am very glad indeed that Nichleby is doing 
so well. You are right about the popularity of the 
347 



348 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

work, for its sale has left even that of Pickwick far 
behind. My general objections to the adaptation of 
any unfinished work of mine simply is that being badly 
done, and worse acted, it tends to vulgarise the char- 
acters, to destroy or weaken in the minds of those 
who see them the impressions I have endeavored to 
create, and consequently to lessen the interest in their 
progress. No such objection can exist for a moment 
when the thing is so admirably done as you have done 
it in this instance. I feel it an act of common justice 
after seeing the piece to withdraw all objection to its 
publication, and to say this much to the parties in- 
terested in it without reserve. If you can spare us 
a private box for next Tuesday I shall be much 
obliged to you. If it be on the stage, so much the 
better, as I shall be really glad of an opportunity 
to tell Mrs. Keeley and O. Smith how much I appre- 
ciate their Smike and Newman Noggs. I put you out 
of the question altogether, for that glorious Mantalini 
is beyond all praise." 

In regard to Mrs. Yates, Dickens had even more pleas- 
ing memories. When she died he wrote to her son: "You 
knew what a loving and faithful remembrance I always 
had of your mother as part of my youth — no more cap- 
able of restoration than my youth itself. All the womanly 
goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went out with 
her. To the last I never could hear her voice without 
emotion. I think of her as a beautiful part of my own 
youth, and this dream that we are all dreaming seems to 
darken." 

No wonder, then, that when, in 1854, Yates, with that 
self-assurance which ever characterised him, introduced 
himself to Dickens as his parents' son, he was given a 
hearty welcome. He was then only twenty years old. For 
the sake of his parents Dickens was kindly disposed to- 
wards him from the beginning, but, as we have already 
noted, he had qualities which in a young man always ap- 
pealed to the novelist — punctuality and reliability 

In 1856 Yates made his first appearance in Household 
Words with a short story entitled "A Fearful Night," 



EDMUND YATES 349 

and thenceforward he was a frequent contributor. Then 
came that wretched trouble with the Garrick Club over his 
insult to Thackeray. In connection with this it is due 
to Yates to say that if Dickens was prepared to break 
with Thackeray for his sake, Yates, in return, worshipped 
Dickens. Exactly what Dickens thought of his young 
admirer is shown in a couple of letters. The first was 
written in response to an application for a reference when 
Yates was applying for an editorship: 

"You cannot overstate my recommendation of you 
for the editorship described in the advertisement ; nor 
can you easily exaggerate the thorough knowledge of 
your qualifications on which such recommendation is 
founded. A man even of your quickness and ready 
knowledge would be useless in such an office unless 
he added to his natural and acquired parts, habits of 
business, punctuality, steadiness and zeal. I so 
thoroughly rely on you in all these respects, and I 
have had so much experience of you in connection with 
them that perhaps the committee may deem my testi- 
mony in your behalf of some unusual worth. In any 
way you think best, make it known to them, and in 
every way rely on my help if you can show me further 
how to help." 

The second was written by Messrs. Fields, Osgood, & 
Co., the famous American publishers, with whom Dickens's 
personal and business relations were so intimate: 

"My particular friend, Mr. Edmund Yates, has 
asked me if I will give him a letter of introduction to 
you, advancing — if I can — his desire of disposing of 
early proofs for publication in America of a new 
serial novel he is writing called 'Nobody's Fortune.' 
Mr. Yates is the most punctual and reliable of men 
in the execution of his work. I have had the plan of 
his story before me, and have advised him upon it, 
and have no doubt of its being of great promise and 
turning upon a capital set of incidents. It has not 
been offered in America as yet, I am assured." 



CHAPTER LXVII 



PERCY FITZGERALD 



A very special favourite among "Dickens's young men" 
was Percy Fitzgerald, whom we are all so glad to have 
still with us. Dickens had a strong personal liking for 
him. This is proved by the novelist's own letters. For 
instance, in 1867, he wrote to Mr. Fitzgerald's mother: 
"In regard to your son ... let me honestly assure you 
that my editorial existence has had no pleasanter incident 
in it than its having made me acquainted with his very 
great abilities, and having made us private friends. It is 
impossible that he can have a more interested or appre- 
ciative reader than he has in me, and no man ever sets 
foot in my house whom I better like to see there." 

It has been of later years rather the fashion among a 
certain class of critics to be very "superior" at Mr. Fitz- 
gerald's expense, to sneer at his enthusiastic hero-worship. 
I am sure Mr. Fitzgerald will forgive me for recalling one 
little incident that goes to show that he is not at all the 
ridiculous undiscriminating Dickensian that these very 
superior critics would have us believe him to be. Some 
years ago he was showing me some of his treasures, and 
he picked up a note-book that had once belonged to Sir 
Walter Scott. "That is one of my most valued posses- 
sions," he said, "because Scott was a great man — a very 
great man — a much greater man than Dickens, don't you 
think?" I confess that I was surprised at the time, for 
only recently he had published his "Life of Charles 
Dickens, as revealed in his writings," in which his adula- 
tion of Boz had certainly been extravagant, and had 
brought down upon his head the ridicule of many critics. 
But, in very truth, anybody who knows Mr. Fitzgerald 
knows perfectly well that he is a man of wide tastes, a 

350 



PERCY FITZGERALD 351 

very competent judge indeed, with a sound idea of values. 
His published works of themselves prove the catholicity of 
his interests. 

But Dickens was the literary hero of his youth and 
prime; he imbibed Pickwick in his boyhood; when he was a 
boy and when he was a young man, Dickens was the glori- 
ous planet round which contemporary stars revolved. 
When he came to manhood's estate, he found himself first 
a welcome contributor to the great man's magazine, and 
later a welcome guest at his house. How should we 
wonder that the glamour of Dickens has remained with 
him all his life? 

Young Fitzgerald's introduction to Household Words 
was brought about by Forster — to whom he had rendered 
some service — in a characteristic way. He wrote a short 
story and submitted it to the "harbitrary cove," who 
marched off with it to Wellington Street, and put it down 
saying that they must see to it, "that there should be no 
official subterfuges, circulars, or the like; it MUST be 
considered and READ, mark you !" It was accepted, and 
its author was forthwith engaged to help with the next 
Christmas number, The Wreck of the Golden Mary. That 
first short story was entitled "Down at the Red Grange," 
and appeared in the number dated September 20, 1856. 
For the next thirteen years Fitzgerald was one of the most 
regular contributors to Household Words and All the Year 
Round. 

Dickens early formed a high opinion of his abilities, but 
he soon discovered a tendency which, I fear, has never 
been completely shaken off. The young man was apt to 
have too many irons in the fire at one time, and thus to 
prejudice the quality of his work. He had a tendency to 
carelessness, too, and that tendency has never been shaken 
off either. Dickens early recognised this, and wrote to the 
young man: 

"You make me very uneasy on the subject of your 
new long story here, and by sowing your name broad- 
cast in so many fields at one time. Just as you are 
coming on with us you have another serial in progress 
in the 'Gentleman's Mag.,' and another announced in 



352 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

'Once a Week,' and so far as I know the art we both 
profess, it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. 
I think the short story you are now finishing in these 
pages obviously marked by traces of great haste 
and small consideration, and a long story similarly 
blemished would really do the publication irreparable 
harm." 

The young man wrote, he tells us, a penitent letter, and 
his hero replied: "Your explanation is (as it naturally 
would be, being yours) manly and honest, and I am both 
satisfied and hopeful." Mr. Fitzgerald has also recorded 
the receipt of the following letter: "For my sake — if not 
for Heaven's — do, I entreat you, look over your manu- 
script before sending it to the printer. Its condition in- 
volves us all in hopeless confusion and really occasions 
great unnecessary cost." 

But, these little weaknesses aside, Percy Fitzgerald was 
an able man, and a reliable man withal, devoid of the 
Bohemianism of Sala or Home, and there must have been 
something very winning about him in those days, too. It 
is not surprising, therefore, that he was a very welcome 
guest at Gadshill. He had been a contributor to House- 
hold Words some time before he met the novelist person- 
ally. The meeting took place in Dublin, where Dickens had 
been reading. Fitzgerald went to the railway station 
when the novelist was leaving, and when the great man 
arrived, "screwing up my courage, I went up to him, and 
said, rather nervously, 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Dickens, 

but my name is ' The keen eyes were looking with 

a sort of distorted anxiety — this was some intruder; but 
when he heard the name he changed in an instant. A warm 
and hearty shake of the hand — up and down — from him. 
'And how do you do?' he said. 'Very glad to see you.'" 

Thus began a friendship which lasted until the end. 
Soon came an invitation to Gadshill: "If you should be 
in England before this" — July 4, 1863 — "I should be de- 
lighted to see you here. It is a very pretty country, not 
thirty miles from London; and if you could spare a day 
or two for its fine walks, I and my two latest dogs, a St. 
Bernard and a bloodhound, would be charmed with your 



PERCY FITZGERALD 353 

company as one of ourselves." The reference to the dogs 
reminds us that Mr. Fitzgerald once wrote an article on 
Dickens's dogs which greatly pleased the novelist, and he 
gave still more pleasure by the gift of an Irish blood- 
hound which received the name of Sultan, and is immortal- 
ised both in Forster's book and in several of the novelist's 
own letters. 

In 1865 Fitzgerald formed one of the party that ac- 
companied the novelist to Knebworth on the occasion of 
the formal opening of the almshouses that had been erected 
on Lytton's estate in connection with the Guild of Liter- 
ature and Art, and "On the return to London," he says, 
"Dickens took the party to Household Words offices, 
where a dainty little repast was set out. Then on to 
Gravesend, and thence to Gadshill." In the following year 
Lytton wrote to Dickens in praise of a novel by Fitz- 
gerald, and Dickens replied: "Fitzgerald will be so proud 
of your opinion of his 'Mrs. Tillotson,' 1 and will (I know) 
derive such great encouragement from it, that I have 
faithfully quoted it, word for word, and sent it on to him 
in Ireland. He is a very clever fellow (you may remem- 
ber, perhaps, that I brought him to Knebworth on the 
Guild day), and has charming sisters, and an excellent 
position." Those sisters were as welcome as he was at 
Gadshill. Their brother has again and again told of his 
visits to Dickens's home, and there is no need for any 
detailed reference here. Suffice it to say that through all 
the years they have been a glorious memory with him. 
It ought to be added that he more than once accompanied 
Dickens on his reading tours, and in Ireland they had 
many happy hours together. 

Of Mr. Fitzgerald's writing for Household Words and 
All tlie Year Round very little need be said. He con- 
tributed to more than one Christmas number, he wrote 
many short stories and articles, he was sent on a special 
commission to Rome, and his serial stories included 
"Never Forgotten," "The Second Mrs. Tillotson," to 
which reference has already been made, and "Fatal Zero," 
of which Dickens wrote to Forster, "I think you will find 

»"The Second Mrs. Tillotson," which Lytton thought was better than 
V Felix Holt.". 



354 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

'Fatal Zero' a very curious bit of mental development, 
deepening as the story goes on into a picture not more 
startling than true." His last story for All the Year 
Round was "Doctor's Mixture." 

Since Dickens's death Mr. Fitzgerald's affection for the 
memory of his master and friend has deepened with every 
year, and in a score of volumes he has raised a very 
sincere monument. More than that, he was the founder 
of the Boz Club, and the first President of the Dickens 
Fellowship; he never tires of bearing testimony to his love 
for Dickens, and in London and elsewhere are busts, 
modelled by his own hands, loving tributes to a cherished 
friendship. If hero-worship be a virtue — and who shall 
say that it is not? — Percy Fitzgerald possesses it in 
abundance. His loving care for Dickens's memory, and 
his pride in the recollection of his friendship with the 
great man are sometimes laughed at, but only by those 
who do not know him. Those who know him know that 
in very truth there is something sacred in it all. 



CHAPTER LXVIII 



CHARLES KENT 



As I have studied Dickens's relations with his friends 
I have wondered sometimes which of all the number loved 
him best. The "Dickens Circle" was a big one, indeed, 
but not in the case of one of its members is there a mere 
regard. Always affection reigned supreme. Forster, the 
friend of longest standing and of the greatest intimacy, 
loved him more deeply — more emotionally — than he — John 
Bull that he was — would have admitted; Maclise loved 
him; so did Stanfield, and Talfourd, and Landor, and 
Carlyle, and Hunt; Townshend and Chorley worshipped 
him; the younger men — Hollingshead, Fitzgerald, Payn, 
Yates — regarded him as a superman. But — putting 
Forster aside — I do verily believe that the most devoted of 
them all was Charles Kent, of whom it may be said, without 
exaggeration at all, that he would have given his life for 
the novelist. "This zealous friend," says the Editors of 
Dickens's Letters; "I doubt if I have a more genial reader 
in the world," wrote Dickens to him. To Kent Dickens was 
something more than human ; something almost divine, and 
in his old age, if any one in his presence uttered a dispara- 
ging word of the novelist, or even of his works, the tears 
would course down his face. 

Kent's regard for Dickens did not commence with their 
personal acquaintance. He had worshipped from afar off, 
when the idea of a personal friendship with the novelist did 
not enter his wildest dreams. It was, indeed, his veneration 
for Dickens that "made them first acquaint." He wrote a 
notice of Dombey and Son for the "Sun," on whose staff 
he was, and the notice so touched Dickens that he wrote 
to the Editor asking him to thank the writer of the review 
on his behalf. Kent, we are told, "replied in his proper 

355 



356 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

person, and from that time dates a close friendship, and 
constant correspondence." Upon receipt of Kent's letter, 
Dickens wrote : "Pray let me repeat to you personally what 
I expressed in my former note, and allow me to assure you, 
as an illustration of my sincerity, that I have never ad- 
dressed a similar communication to anybody, except on one 
occasion." 

From that time dated a friendship which partook of hero- 
worship unadulterated on one side, and, on the other, of 
an unaffected appreciation of that hero-worship, coupled 
with a sincere recognition of a simply good character, and 
high literary gifts. 

When Kent began to write for Household Words he must 
have felt curiously at home, for he and Blanchard Jerrold 
had some years previously rented the offices from which that 
paper was issued as the officers of the "Astrologer," a com- 
petitor with Zadkiel. While he was still writing for All the 
Year Round he became the proprietor of the "Sun," and 
Dickens wrote him a letter expressive of his friendship: 

"I meant to have written instantly on the appearance 
of your paper in its beautiful freslmess, to congratulate 
you on its handsome appearance, and to send you my 
heartiest good wishes for its thriving and prosperous 
career. Through a mistake of the postman's that re- 
markable letter has been tesselated into the Infernal 
Pavement instead of being delivered in the Strand. 

"We have been looking and waiting for your being 
well enough to propose yourself for a mouthful of fresh 
air. Are you well enough to come on Sunday? .. ." 

The invitation conveyed in this letter is a reminder that 
during the last ten years of his life Dickens welcomed Charles 
Kent to Gadshill more heartily than he welcomed most 
people. 

Kent was one of the guests at the wedding of Kate 
Dickens to Charles Collins, and it may be remarked that he 
is mentioned more than once in the "Gad's Hill Gazette," 
to which previous reference has been made. 

In 1867, when Dickens was going to America for his 
reading tour, the suggestion of a send-off banquet was en- 



CHARLES KENT 357 

thusiastically taken up by Kent, who undertook all the 
arrangements. Two years after Dickens's death Kent pub- 
lished "Charles Dickens as a Reader." This was a work 
undertaken with the novelist's express sanction, as the fol- 
lowing proves: 

"Everything that I can let you have in aid of the 
proposed record (which, of course, would be far more 
agreeable to me if done by } r ou than by any other hand) 
shall be at your service. Dolby has all the figures re- 
lating to America, and 3^ou shall have for reference the 
books which I read." 

That letter was written on March 26, 1870. Less than 
three months afterwards Dickens wrote his last letter. It 
was to Kent: 

Wednesday, eighth June 1870. 

"My dear Kent, 

"To-morrow is a very bad day for me to make 
a call, as, in addition to my usual office business, I 
have a mass of records to settle with Wills. But I hope 
I may be ready for you at 3 o'clock. If I can't be — 
why, then I shan't be. 

"You must really get rid of those Opal enjoyments. 
They are too overpowering. 

" 'These violent delights have violent ends.' I think 
it was a father of your church who made the wise 
remark to a young gentleman who got up early (or 
stayed out late) at Verona? 

"Ever affectionately, 

"C. D." 

Little more than an hour after the ink had dried on that 
letter, Dickens was stricken unto death. The letter was 
subsequently presented by Kent to the British Museum. 



CHAPTER LXIX 



HENRY MORLEY 



Next to Wills, the most important member of the House- 
hold Words circle was Henry Morley, whom Mr. Percy Fitz- 
gerald describes as "a sort of deputy sub-editor of immense 
use; in fact, a kind of handy man ... a man of all work." 
He was a reliable, conscientious, level-headed man — "a 
thoroughly fine, earnest fellow," as Dickens declared, whose 
work for Household Words and for All the Year Round 
was of immense value. He was not a journalist in the sense 
that Sala was, or Hollingshead or Moy Thomas, but he 
was a sound man, well read and well educated, of a serious 
turn of mind, and he wrote ably and attractively on certain 
topics. To Wills he was an invaluable man, and Mr. Fitz- 
gerald tells us that he could co-operate with any writer who 
wanted help. 

Morley had a varied career. He started by practising 
medicine, and it was his articles on hygienic subjects, writ- 
ten in a novel and quaintly humorous way, that attracted 
Dickens. But, through no fault of his own, he made no head- 
way in his profession and became a schoolmaster, making, 
by dint of hard and conscientious work, a success of private 
schools at Manchester and Liverpool. Whilst engaged in 
this work he wrote some articles on hygienic subjects for 
the "Journal of Public Health." In 1849, the "Examiner," 
at that time edited by Forster, reprinted one of these 
articles, and this led to his contributing to that famous 
newspaper. This, in its turn, led to an invitation to write 
for Household Words, and this again to an offer of a per- 
manent position on the staff of that paper. 

Morley's associations with Dickens were not very intimate. 
Dickens had a high opinion of him as a high-minded, con- 
scientious man, describing him as one "whom one cannot see 
without knowing to be a straightforward, earnest man," but 
they were very different in temperament. It is difficult to 

358 



HENRY MORLEY 359 

imagine Morley convulsed with laughter at children's 
theatricals, or enjoying a rollicking evening at the Star and 
Garter. I doubt if he ever really understood Dickens, 
though he certainly liked him. 

It was on April 5, 1850, that Morley received a letter 
from Forster enclosing one from Dickens requesting that 
he would write on sanitary matters for Household Words, 
and we find the recipient writing to his future wife: "More 
compliment. If we begin so how shall we stop? Well, I 
must put my knuckles into my brains and root about. 
That's a fact. I do not care very much for Household 
Words, but this will lead to my making Dickens' acquaint- 
ance, and as I respect his labours heartily, I shall be glad 
of that." He was glad, too, to have a second pulpit from 
which to preach health to the people. Two days later he 
wrote his first article for Household Words. It was on 
City Abuses, and was entitled "Wild Sports in the City," 
and announcing its completion, he wrote of his admiration 
for Dickens, and of his belief that the novelist would take 
a place in literature next to Fielding. But as to Dickens's 
qualifications as an Editor he was less confident: 

"But he has no sound literary taste; his own genius, 
brilliant as it is, appears often in a dress that shows 
that he has more heart and wit than critical refine- 
ment. So I doubt whether he is the right man to 
edit a journal of literary mark, though it would be 
full of warm and human sympathies and contain first- 
rate writing from his own pen. Nous verrons. I shall 
be heartily rejoiced if my fears prove unfounded." 

As all the world knows, they did. 

Morley entered into his work for Household Words with 
all enthusiasm, and continued to write frequently for the 
paper until in June 1851 he was surprised to receive a letter 
from Dickens offering him a position on the Household 
Words staff at five guineas a week. It was a gratifying 
offer, but not one to be lightly accepted, for he had just 
succeeded in building up his school. He wrote to Forster, 
the sure friend of almost every literary man of his time, 
and the reply was: "Mr. Dickens is the kindest and most 
honourable of men; and in whatever you do for him you 



360 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

will be able to reckon steadfastly on his earnest acknowledg- 
ment and liberal desire to make it more and more worth your 
doing." 

The offer was accepted, and Morley came to London, 
where he quickly justified the good opinion and high ex- 
pectations that had been formed of him. We have it on 
Wills's authority that he "was the best fellow they ever had 
to do with." He was treated with great trust and honoured 
with several missions, and in everything he did he acquitted 
himself well. Of Dickens as an editor he soon formed a high 
opinion : "Dickens," he wrote, "reads every letter sent to 
him, and not a note to the office is pooh-poohed; every sug- 
gestion that may lead to good, however overlaid with the 
ridiculous, is earnestly accepted and attended to." That 
is the main art of editorship. 

That Dickens appreciated Morley's work is shown in 
several letters. In reference to a paper entitled "The Quiet 
Poor," the novelist wrote: "You affected me deeply by the 
paper itself. I think it is absolutely impossible it should 
have been better done." And in 1855 he wrote: "I am 
very much touched by your article 'Frost-bitten Homes,' " 
proposing at the same time to visit with Morley a number 
of poor homes. Several such visits were made, and recalling" 
them afterwards. Morley told of the tenderness and keen 
anxiety with which Dickens made his inquiries, and how, 
as he left each room after getting his facts, he also left half- 
crowns. 

The Household Words Almanac, it should be recorded, 
owed its existence to Morley's suggestion. When All the 
Year Round was started, Morley continued to work for it 
as he had worked for its predecessor, but in 1865 he re- 
signed his post. Three years later, when Wills was seriously 
ill, he filled his place for some months. Dickens, we are 
told, welcomed him back with rejoicing, and paid most 
liberally for his contributions, also greatly valuing the as- 
sistance of several new writers whom he was able to secure. 
And Wills wrote: "I am not in a hurry to get back; all 
the better for All the Year Round, I think. The numbers 
appear to me to be better than ever they were in my time." 

It should be added that in 1853 Morley acted for a short 
time as tutor to Dickens's eldest son. 



CHAPTER LXX 



G. A. SALA 



Most famous and most brilliant of all the famous and 
brilliant band of "Dickens's young men" was George Augus- 
tus Sala. When Dickens died, Sala wrote the obituary 
notice in the "Daily Telegraph," and he concluded thus: 

"I have frequently asked myself in the course of this 
retrospect whether ... I have over-estimated his 
powers, have exaggerated his qualities, have ranked him 
too high in the hierarchy of great men. ... I can 
only plead that, if I have erred, the error must be 
attributed to ignorance — but to an ignorance which 
may be palliated by its sincerity. . . . And my fanati- 
cism, if fanaticism it be, may lose some of its apparent 
insanity if I mention that when he first came before 
the world as an author I was an illiterate child, gifted 
with a strongly retentive memory, but Blind; that the 
chief solace in my blindness was to hear my sister read 
the Sketches by Boz; that when I recovered my sight, 
it was out of Pickwick, and by the same loving teacher 
that I was taught to read; and that finally I knew him 
from 1836 upwards, and, in literature, served him faith- 
fully for nineteen years." 

The "Telegraph" article, slightly extended, was reprinted 
in book form, and in the introduction to that little volume 
Sala wrote: 

"My constant aim has been to suppress, as far as 
I possibly could, all mention of my personal dealings 
with him — dealings which have governed almost ex- 
clusively the tenor of my life. . . . He was my master ; 
and but for his friendship and encouragement, I should 

361 



362 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

never have been a journalist or a writer of books. My 
first coherent production was published by him in 1851 ; 
the first five-pound note I ever earned by literature 
came from his kind hand; I wrote for him, and for no 
other chief, for seven years ; he sent me to Russia ; we 
quarrelled (of course, I was in the wrong), and he 
laughingly forgave me my transgressions, my debts, 
and my evil temper; he urged me to enter into the 
lists of journalism, and watched with interest my prog- 
ress in the newspaper with which I have been connected 
for thirteen years. . . . With the single exception of 
No Thoroughfare, no Christmas number of Household 
Words or All the Year Round was planned without his 
asking my co-operation; less than a year ago I wrote 
an article in the last-named publication; I was writing 
an article for him at the very moment when he was 
stricken down; and the last words he ever said to me 
. . . were 'God bless you!' And this is the whole his- 
tory of my lettered life." 

A good many years later Sala rather qualified this utter- 
ance, but its fundamental truth is unquestionable. In his 
autobiography he records his early interest in Dickens and 
his early association with the novelist. From infancy he 
breathed the atmosphere of the theatre, and he remembered 
having seen performances of The Strange Gentleman and 
The Village Coquettes. He was present at the first perform- 
ance of the latter piece, and he remembered being taken 
behind the scenes, "where I found my mother talking to a 
very young gentleman, with long brown hair falling in silky 
masses over his temples ; with eyes which, young as I was, 
at once struck me as full of power and strong will, and with 
a touching expression of sweetness and kindliness on his 
lips." A few years later he met the novelist again. He 
had left school and was intended for the profession of an 
artist. He was fifteen years old ; his mother thought — with 
a mother's vanity — that his drawings were worthy of 
"Punch." "She did not know the original Editor of 
'Punch,' " says Sala, "but she suddenly bethought herself 
that that genial gentleman was a friend of Charles Dickens ; 
so she wrote the novelist . . . reminding; him of the old 



G. A. SALA 363 

St. James's Theatre days, and asking whether she might be 
allowed to wait upon him with myself and the inevitable port- 
folio crammed with pen-and-ink drawings." An appoint- 
ment was made, and "Dickens received us with his usual cor- 
diality ; began to talk about the opera and play-houses, 
keeping all the while that wonderful eye of his very earnestly 
on me: and then we opened the portfolio, and he went quite 
as earnestly through the pile of drawings. His verdict was 
that he thought 'I should do,' and that 'something must be 
done,' and that Mr. Mark Lemon, the Editor of 'Punch,' 
was the man to do it; so the next day we called upon Mr. 
Lemon at his office in Whitefriars with a letter of intro- 
duction from the author of Pickwick." Nothing came of the 
visit, but the incident shows that Sala had very good rea- 
sons for gratitude towards Dickens. 

The years passed again, and then came Sala's start in 
journalism. The story of how he came to write "The Key 
of the Street" has been told many times, and need not be 
repeated here. He sent it to Dickens with a letter reminding 
him of their earlier acquaintance. Within four hours came 
a letter from the novelist accepting the article and enclosing 
a five-pound note. 

" 'The Key of the Street,' says its author, "was lit- 
erally the turning point in my career; yet I may add 
. . . that I at first entertained not the slightest hope, 
or, indeed, had a very lively desire, to contribute any 
more articles to Household Words; and when, a few 
days later, the assistant editor of that paper wrote to 
express Mr. Dickens's wish to have another article from 
my pen, I was for a considerable time in grave doubts 
as to what I should write about." 

For Dickens had written to Wills : "There is nobody about 
us whom we can use in this way more advantageously than 
this young man. It will be exceedingly desirable to set him 
on some subjects." Thenceforth, week after week, year 
after year, scarcely a number of Household Words, or, later, 
of All the Year Round, appeared that did not contain an 
article from his pen. Oftentimes he had two articles in one 
number. 

Most certainly Dickens treated Sala with generosity. The 



364 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

contributors' book of Household Words proves that; for 
it shows that this young man continually overdrew his ac- 
count. He admits it: "I had always," he says, "Household 
Words as a stand-by. There was the five-guinea fee for 
every article I wrote; I often got through two in the course 
of one week, and if, as it more than once happened, I over- 
drew my account — I did so on one occasion to the extent 
of twenty pounds — and, on another, of seventy pounds — 
Dickens would, after a while, laughingly suggest the sponge 
should be passed over the slate and we should begin again." 

On the other hand, I cannot but think that Mr. Percy 
Fitzgerald is not quite fair to Sala. He says: "At last he 
persuaded Dickens to send him to Russia to do for the 
Journal what he had so often done for his own paper, the 
'Daily Telegraph,' that is, 'word paint' all the manners, cus- 
toms, and doings of the Muscovites. At last Dickens agreed. 
But G. A. S. had the fatal defect of 'growing tired' of an 
enforced job." Mr. Fitzgerald says that Sala went to Rus- 
sia towards the close of 1856, and in October his articles 
began to appear under the title of "A Journey due North." 
When he got to St. Petersburg, we are told, he was nearly 
tired; it was too much trouble to go and get information, 
so he wrote long rambling articles. He devoted column after 
column to Russian cab-drivers, and that led him off to the 
cab-drivers of other countries. For weeks he wrote about 
the great street, the Newski Prospect, and at last Dickens 
stopped the series. 

Now, to begin with, Sala is very definite that he first began 
to write for the "Daily Telegraph" in 1857; therefore Mr. 
Fitzgerald is wrong when he says that that paper had often 
sent him on similar tours previous to 1856. Again, Sala 
expressly says, "I was not expected to forward any copy 
to Household Words until I had left Russia," and he gives 
a very acceptable reason for that. If this be correct, then 
Mr. Fitzgerald's recollection is clearly at fault. 

Nevertheless, this Russian trip led to a rupture with 
Dickens, and Sala's explanation is scarcely convincing. He 
tells how, long before he reached England, he had nearly 
exhausted his money. He wrote to Wills for a ten-pound 
note, and he says "this enabled me to pay my fare by 
Lille and Calais to London, to buy a few books and prints 



G. A. SALA 365 

in Brussels, and to arrive at London Bridge with a couple 
of sovereigns in my pocket." He obtained an offer of £250 
for the "Journey due North" in volume form ; and then : 

"I quarrelled with Dickens. When, fourteen years 
afterwards, he died, I wrote a notice of liim in the 
'Daily Telegraph,' and shortly afterwards this notice 
was republished. . . . Now in this trifle I made a pass- 
ing allusion to my misunderstanding with Dickens ; x 
and, moved by I hope not ungenerous impulse, I added 
that in this feud I had been in the wrong. I revered the 
writer and I loved the man. ... A spiteful critic . . . 
went out of his way, while professing to review a work 
of mine entitled 'Things I have Seen, and People I have 
Met,' to say that Dickens was very kind to me, and 
that it was at his expense that I went to Russia. 
Charles Dickens was kind to many youthful authors be- 
sides myself; and he was for five years exceptionally 
kind to me, for the reason that he had known me in 
early youth. But, confound it! I gave him malt for 
his meal." 

Just a word here. Admitting the quality of Sala's work 
for Household Words, we still have to remember that he 
was totally unknown when he wrote "The Key of the Street," 
and still a very obscure journalist when he undertook this 
trip to Russia. He says that it was this trip that first 
caused his name to be known. He received £5 for every 
article to chose to write for Household Words. This was 
generous payment to an unknown man, and his talk about 
his having given Dickens malt for his meal was unworthy of 
him, more especially when we remember his admission that 
he frequently overdrew his account — once even to the extent 
of £70 — and that Dickens often sponged the slate. Let him 
proceed : 

"As to the statement of the spiteful critic, that I 
went to Russia at Dickens's expense, there is in it a 
suppression of truth which is more than a suggestion 
of falsehood. In the last letter which he wrote me 
before I went away, he said, 'You shall have the means 
> See p. 362. 



366 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

of travelling in comfort and respectability.' I drew 
a certain sum to defray my expenses to St. Petersburg ; 
and there I found, at Messrs. Stieglitz', a monthly 
credit of forty pounds. In all, between April and No- 
vember I received the sum of two hundred and forty 
pounds, eight-tenths of which I spent in subsistence and 
travelling outlay ; and I landed in England, as I have 
said, with two pounds in my pocket. It logically fol- 
lows that if I went to Russia at Dickens's expense, I 
wrote the 'Journey due North' at my own." 

The logic is not self-evident. He proceeds to relate how he 
subsequently gave offence. About half a dozen papers re- 
mained to be written when he reached London. He was dis- 
satisfied with what he unreasonably considered to be the 
ungenerous treatment he had received; he found another 
excellent source of income ; and the delivery of the last half- 
dozen papers "hung fire," as he puts it. He yet had the 
impertinence to demand his travelling expenses, however, and 
was referred to a solicitor for his pains. In face of these 
facts, in face of the frequent overdrafts, and the "sponging 
of the slate"- — of which, conceivably, Dickens was growing 
rather tired — it is astonishing that Sala, at almost the end 
of his career, should have talked about his "ungenerous 
treatment." On his own admission, he had scarcely "played 
the game," and Dickens had just cause for resentment. The 
novelist, indeed, refused permission for the republication of 
the papers, and so the rupture was complete. However, in 
1858 the embargo was removed; the book was published, and 
the breach was healed. 

There is another point in regard to which Mr. Fitzgerald 
is not fair to Sala — if, that is, the latter's autobiography 
is to be accepted as reliable. He says that after a series of 
failures Dickens agreed to take a novel from Sala, called 
"Quite Alone." It commenced in February 1864, and went 
on until September; then there appeared this notice: "The 
continuation of this story is postponed until this day fort- 
night." Next week there was this notice: "The continuation 
of this story is postponed until next week." Then, says Mr. 
Fitzgerald, it was resumed, and it concluded on Novem- 
ber 12. "I believe," he adds, "Sala supplied not another 



G. A. SALA 367 

line, and it is certain that Boz was compelled to call in the 
aid of a deft emergency man — Andrew Halliday — who, in an 
incredibly short time, contrived to finish the tale, imita- 
ting the style and peculiarities of his friend — for such he was 
— with due success." Now, Sala does not mention anything 
about the copy of this story having "hung fire," nor does he 
say anything about Halliday having finished it, but he does 
state facts which would explain the inconvenience caused. 
We must remember that at this time his main source of 
income was the "Daily Telegraph," and that whatever he 
wrote for Dickens was in the nature of an "aside." 

"I began," he says, "to write a novel myself in the 
summer of 1863; it was called 'Quite Alone.' . . . 
Dickens . . . secured it for All the Year Round; and 
my name was to be attached to it. . . . It was about 
three-quarters finished when there came to me, quite 
unexpectedly, an offer from the proprietors of the 
'Daily Telegraph' to proceed as a special correspondent 
to the United States, tlien in the midst of war." 

The italics are mine. The sentence so printed is surely 
ample explanation of any inconvenience that may have been 
caused, and quite sufficient to dispose of the insinuation that 
Sala's Bohemian habits were the origin of the trouble. It 
is, indeed, conceivable, in the circumstances, that Halliday 
was called in at his own suggestion and not at Dickens's. 

But little need be said of Sala's more personal associa- 
tions with Dickens. He was never persona grata as Yates, 
Fitzgerald, and Kent were, and he was not a frequent visitor 
at the novelist's house, but he was well liked, and, if only 
for the sake of earlier days, Dickens took a deep interest in 
him. He was a frequent guest at dinners at Wellington 
Street, where the offices of Household Words were situated 
— "to my great glee and contentment," he says, "I used to 
get an invitation to dine at Household Words office about 
once a month." He tells, also, how he met Dickens in Paris, 
and was "in clover," and he says, "I learned once, quite acci- 
dentally, from my friend Edmund Yates, that the Conductor 
of Household Words had made strenuous, but fruitless, 
efforts to obtain for me a position on the staff of 'Punch,' 
not as an artist, but as a writer." 



CHAPTER LXXI 



MRS. LYNN LINTON 



"Good enough for anything, and thoroughly reliable." 
So wrote Dickens against the name of Mrs. Lynn Linton in 
a list of contributors to Household Words, and in writing 
it I think he wrote all he felt in regard to her. That is to 
say, she was an acquaintance held in some regard, and a 
valued contributor, whilst he showed her many kindnesses, 
but to describe her as a friend would be a misuse of words. 
She herself tells us that she did not know Dickens intimately, 
and that her business relations with Household Words and 
All the Year Round were conducted with Wills. As a mat- 
ter of fact, she was just that type of strong-minded woman 
that was more likely to repel than to attract Dickens, and 
the earnest efforts of her biographer notwithstanding, it is 
difficult to trace in her, strongly developed, those feminine 
traits that we know appealed to the novelist. Further, she 
did not like Forster, and she offended Dickens once by dis- 
playing that dislike in a review she wrote for him of his 
friend's "Life of Landor." Dickens returned the article, 
and wrote the review himself. On another occasion he re- 
buked her for an unnecessarily unkind reference to Lockhart 
in an article which she wrote for him. 

On the other hand, she was a friend of one of his most 
cherished friends — Landor. This old man had had a great 
liking for her as a young girl, and it was he who introduced 
her to Dickens at Bath, when she was twenty-four years old. 
Of the occasion she says, "We had, I remember, a delight- 
ful evening. Dickens was sweet and kind and gay to me." 
She was an undoubtedly able writer, too, and Dickens was 
careful to entertain her goodwill, whilst the sorrow that 
came into her life earned for her his true sympathy. We 
find that she was occasionally a guest at his house. "I used 

368 



MRS. LYNN LINTON 369 

to go to Mr. Dickens's parties, etc., with all the rest of the 
world," she wrote to the late F. G. Kitton. She had some 
hard struggles during her life, and more than once Dickens 
was her friend in need, his generosity as conductor of House- 
hold Words helping her across many a stony road. And, 
to her credit, she proved her gratitude when the opportunity 
came in 1859. Household Words died in that } : ear, and 
All the Year Round took its place. Messrs. Bradbury and 
Evans at once commenced a rival publication, "Once a 
Week," and made Mrs. Lynn Linton a valuable offer. But 
she remembered that Dickens's generous payments for ar- 
ticles had several times practically saved her from starva- 
tion, and so she wrote to him, telling him the facts, and 
asking whether he saw any objection to her accepting the 
offer made to her. It was a proper thing to do, of course, 
but not everybody would have done it. 

Dickens replied that she could not write too much for 
All the Year Round, that whatever she wrote for him would, 
as a matter of course, be warmly welcomed, and that her 
contributions would always have precedence in his magazine. 
He added that he looked upon himself as her Editor of 
right, and made it very clear that any commerce with the 
opposition would be regarded as a personal injury. "Of 
course," says her biographer, Mr. Geo. Somes Layard, "such 
a reply was very gratifying, and forthwith she became his 
faithful lieutenant, and refused the tempting offer of his 
rivals." 

But Mrs. Lynn Linton's more interesting association with 
Dickens has nothing to do with either Household Words 
or All the Year Round. It was from her that he purchased 
Gadshill. In February 1858 he wrote to Wills that he had 
seen a little house at Gadshill to be let, and that "the spot 
and the very house are literally *a dream of my childhood.' " 
No need to recall the story of the "very queer small boy" 
who was told by his father that some day, if he grew up 
to be a good man, he might own that house. Mr. R. C. 
Lehmann says that the house referred to in the letter to 
Wills is not the famous house, but the one opposite, and 
that the negotiations for its purchase broke down. Mr. 
Lehmann was surely wrong, for when, in the same year, 
Dickens did purchase the house in which he was to die, he 



370 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

wrote to M. de Cerjatt "I have always in passing looked 
to see if it was to be sold or let, and it has never been to 
me like any other house." 

This leaves no room for doubt but that the house which 
is now world famous, is the house referred to in the letter 
to Wills. It had belonged to Mrs. Lynn Linton's father, 
and she had lived there as a girl. Shortly after his death, 
Mrs. Lynn Linton met Wills at a dinner-party, and in the 
course of conversation told him that the estate would shortly 
be in the market. Wills informed his "chief," who eventually 
became the owner for £1700. An amusing fact is that the 
vendor asked £40 for the ornamental timber, and Dickens 
and Wills objecting, the matter went to arbitration, with 
the result that Dickens had to pay £70, which, as Mrs. Lynn 
Linton remarks, "was in the nature of a triumph." 

She never saw Gadshill after she had sold it. "He used 
to always say I must go down" she wrote to the late F. G. 
Kitton, "but as no time was fixed I did not go." 



CHAPTER LXXII 

SOME MORE MEMBERS OF THE BAND 

There are a few other members of the Household Words 
and All the Year Round circle who have unchallengeable 
claims to places here. Few contributed more frequently, 
few loved Dickens more truly than James Payn, for instance. 
Payn largely owed his success in life to Dickens's encourage- 
ment, and in his early days as a journalist his chief sources 
of income were Household Words and "Chambers' Journal," 
of which latter paper he was for a time Editor. His first 
article for Household Words was entitled "Gentleman 
Cadet," and described life in a Military Academy. It led 
to his acquaintance with Dickens. The Governor of Wool- 
wich Academy read the article, took exception to it, and 
wrote to Dickens with some acerbity. He stated, "If your 
correspondent had been a cadet himself I should not have 
addressed you, but it is clear to me that he is an outsider." 

As a matter of fact, Payn had been a cadet, and the 
Governor was so informed. He demanded the writer's name, 
and Dickens wrote to Payn for permission to disclose it. 
Thus began, we are told, "an acquaintance which presently 
ripened into friendship, none the less sincere though the obli- 
gations in connection with it were, from first to last, all on 
one side." Thenceforth no one contributed more frequently 
to Household Words: Payn had often two contributions in 
one number, and once no fewer than three. 

Dickens and Payn met in the flesh for the first time in 
1856, when the novelist went to Edinburgh in the course of 
his reading tour. The young man received a letter from 
the novelist inviting him to accompany him and his 
daughters to Hawthornden. The invitation was accepted, 
and Dickens related to Wills "we laughed all day." After 

371 



372 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

that day, says Payn, "I discarded for ever the picture which 
I had made in my mind of him, and substituted for it a still 
pleasanter one taken from life." 

The friendship lasted until Dickens's death, though inti- 
macy was impossible owing to Payn being mostly resident 
in Edinburgh. But the novelist had a very strong liking 
indeed for him, and Payn had all his life regarded him as a 
literary idol. 

John Hollingshead was a regular contributor of whose 
work Dickens had a very high opinion.. He commenced to 
write for Household Words in 1851. "Dickens," he tells us, 
"liked descriptive articles of life and odd corners of life, 
for in the early 'fifties the daily newspaper purveyed news 
only, with some social and political comment, and had not 
turned itself into a daily magazine. I supplied these articles 
freely, as they gave me outdoor employment which suited my 
active temperament; but I also occasionally wrote short 
stories." In September 1851 we find Dickens writing to 
Wills : "I have at Gadshill a pretty little paper of a good 
deal of merit by one Mr. Hollingshead." That paper was 
entitled "Poor Tom," and appeared in the number dated 
October 17, 1851. Thenceforth Hollingshead was one of 
the most regular contributors. He certainly contributed 
to more than one of the famous Christmas numbers, both of 
Household Words and of All the Year Round, and a print 
of the period shows him as a member of "The Committee of 
Concoction" planning Tom Tiddler's Ground. The other 
members of the Committee are Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and 
Sala. 

But quite possibly Dickens had a rather closer interest 
in Hollingshead than in some others of his young men, be- 
cause Hollingshead was so keen on the drama, his associa- 
tions with which are historic. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has re- 
corded x how he once accompanied Dickens to the Gaiety to 
see Hollingshead's revival of The Miller and His Men, a 
play that had charmed the novelist as a child. 

But there was never any intimacy. Hollingshead was 
just one of that immortal band of "Dickens's young men" — 
a most capable and reliable contributor to the two peri- 
odicals edited by the novelist. Dickens was to him, however, 
1 The Dickensian, December 1908. 



MORE MEMBERS OF THE BAND 373 

a "superior creature," and to the end of his life he reverenced 
the great man. 

I think J. C. Parkinson may be classed with Hollingshead. 
He was not quite the journalist that John was, but he was 
held in very similar regard by Dickens as a reliable, sound, 
competent man who could be trusted implicitly. He was 
only seventeen years old when Household Words started, 
and so he was not one of the earliest contributors to that 
magazine. But it was under Dickens's editorship that he 
commenced his journalistic career, and for Dickens he did 
much excellent work. He had a knack of making even a 
Blue Book interesting, and that was a quality which every 
reader of Household Words and All the Year Round knows 
appealed to the Editor of those magazines. And the young 
man worshipped Dickens as every one of that remarkable 
band of contributors did, and to the end of his days his 
associations with the novelist were a cherished memory. 

Dickens's regard for Parkinson was shown in a letter 
written in 1868. Parkinson appealed to the novelist to 
recommend him to Mr. Gladstone for the vacant Commis- 
sionership of Inland Revenue. In reply Dickens wrote that 
he was diffident of approaching Mr. Gladstone, with whom 
his acquaintance was slight, but that Mr. Parkinson might 
make what use he liked of the following: 

"In expressing my conviction that you deserve the 
place, and are in every way qualified for it, I found 
my testimony upon as accurate a knowledge of your 
character and abilities as any one can possibly have 
acquired. In my editorship of Household Words and 
All the Year Round, you know very well that I have 
invariably offered you those subjects of political and 
social interest to write upon, in which integrity, exact- 
ness, a remarkable power of generalising evidence and 
balancing facts, and a special clearness in stating a 
case, were indispensable on the part of the writer. My 
confidence in your powers has never been misplaced, 
and through all our literary intercourse you have never 
been hasty or wrong. Whatever trust you have under- 
taken has been so completely discharged that it has 
become my habit to read your proofs rather for my 



374 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

own edification than (as in other cases) for the detec- 
tion of some slip here or there, or the more pithy pre- 
sentation of the subject. 

"That your literary work has never interfered with 
the discharge of your official duties, I may assume to 
be at least as well known to your colleagues as it is 
to me. It is idle to say that if the post were in my 
gift you should have it, because you have had for 
some years most of the posts of high trust that have 
been at my disposal. An excellent public servant in 
your literary sphere of action, I should be heartily 
glad if you could have this new opportunity of dis- 
tinguishing yourself in the same character. And this 
is at least unselfish in me, for I suppose I should then 
lose you." 

There are two or three others who may be dealt with vary 
briefly. Walter Thornbury wrote frequently, and he was 
also associated with the novelist on the "Daily News." He 
was also an occasional guest at Dickens's house, but I can 
find no record of close friendship. But some of Dickens's 
letters to him respecting his contributions to Household 
Words and All the Year Round are of quite special inter- 
est as showing the novelist's care and conscientiousness as 
an Editor. Moy Thomas was one of the "young men" 
particularly valued, because of his reliability, but he was 
not, as far as I can ascertain, a friend as some others were. 
Richard Hengist Home, the eccentric and erratic, was a 
very frequent contributor, but it would be absurd to de- 
scribe him as a friend. Still, he is worthy of remembrance 
here because of his admirable chapter on Dickens in "The 
New Spirit of the Age," 



CHAPTER LXXIII 

TWO LADIES MRS. GASKELL, AND MISS MARTINEATJ 

Two members of what Mr. Anthony Humm called "the 
soft sex" remain to be noted in this group of contributors 
to Dickens's two periodicals. Mrs. Gaskell, as the author 
of the first serial story for Household Words, certainly 
has claims to honourable mention here. She was on good, 
though not intimate, terms with Dickens ; was an occasional 
visitor at his house, and was one of the company at the 
dinner which was held to celebrate the start of David Cop- 
perfield. He had a very high opinion of her abilities. That 
is shown by the following extract from bis letter inviting 
her to write for his paper: 

"You may perhaps have seen an announcement in 
the papers of my intention to start a new cheap weekly 
journal of general literature. 

"I do not know what your vows of temperance or 
abstinence may be, but I do honestly know that there 
is no living English writer whose aid I would desire 
to enlist in preference to the authoress of 'Mary Bar- 
ton' (a book that most profoundly affected and im- 
pressed me), I venture to ask you whether you can 
give me any hope that you will write a short tale, 
or any number of tales, for the projected pages. 

". . .1 should set a value on your help which your 
modesty can hardly imagine; and I am perfectly sure 
that the best result of your reflection or observation 
in respect of the life around you, would attract atten- 
tion and do good. ..." 

The result was "Lizzie Leigh," which was followed by 
several other stories. Dickens's admiration for Mrs. Gas- 

375 



376 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

kell's work continued. In March 1852 he wrote to Forster: 
"Don't you think Mrs. Gaskell charming? With one ill- 
considered thing that looks like want of natural percep- 
tion, I think it masterly." This was a reference to a short 
story entitled "Memory at Cranford." And in 1855 he 
wrote to Mrs. Gaskell herself: 

"Let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your 
story; 1 not because it is the end of a task to which 
you had conceived a dislike . . . but because it is the 
vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious 
labour. It seems to me that you have felt the ground 
thoroughly firm under your feet, and have strided on 
with a force and purpose that Must now give you 
pleasure. 

And the letter proceeded: 

"You will not, I hope, allow that non-lucid interval 
of dissatisfaction with yourself (and me?), which 
beset you for a minute or two once upon a time, to 
linger in the shape of any disagreeable association with 
Household Words. I shall still look forward to the 
large side of paper, and shall soon feel disappointed 
if they don't begin to reappear. 

"I thought it best that Wills should write the 
business letter on the conclusion of the story, as that 
part of our communications had always previously 
rested with him. I trust you found it satisfactory? 
I refer to it not as a matter of mere form, but because 
I sincerely wish everything between us to be beyond 
the possibility of misunderstanding or reservation." 

This letter certainly tends to confirm the statement of 
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald that Dickens found Mrs. Gaskell a 
difficult person to deal with. Of her character, as of her 
abilities, he had nothing but admiration, but in his role 
of Editor he found her very "touchy." She had an abso- 
lute confidence in her own powers, and would not "stand 
any nonsense" in regard to her writings. Dickens was a 
> " North and South.'! 



TWO LADIES 377 

brilliant Editor and a kindly Editor, ever ready to en- 
courage and help, but he was undoubtedly an autocrat, 
and never hesitated to alter anybody's "copy" to bring 
it into compliance with his ideas or — the same tiling — 
with the policy or spirit of his paper. Young men, on the 
threshold of their careers, like Parkinson, Fitzgerald, Sala, 
etc., were grateful for his suggestions and alterations, but, 
in justice to Mrs. Gaskell, we have to remember that she 
had an established position as a novelist before she began 
to write for Household Words, and we cannot in fairness 
condemn her for objecting to another novelist, even though 
it were Charles Dickens himself, altering the productions 
of her genius. So that I cannot follow Mr. Fitzgerald 
when he says: "In spite of soothing compliments and 
abounding homage, she was to be the cause of much worry 
and trouble to him, and, excellent as her performances 
were, it may be doubted whether her assistance was much 
gain to the paper." Even though she may have caused 
Dickens "much worry and trouble," it is decidedly difficult 
to understand why that fact should have prevented — say, 
"Lizzie Leigh" and "North and South" being of assist- 
ance to the paper ! Mr. Fitzgerald makes much of the fact 
that Mrs. Gaskell "once wrote to Wills declaring that she 
must particularly stipulate not to have her proofs touched 
even by Mr. Dickens." Surely a novelist whose fame was 
quite independent of Household Words or its Editor was 
entitled to make such a stipulation. 

Harriet Martineau began to write for Household Words 
in 1850, and wrote frequently for three or four years. As 
to personal friendship, there really was none. She and 
Dickens met only once during her London life, and 
though after she had settled in the Lake District they 
seem to have met occasionally when she visited London, 
their relations were practically entirely of a business char- 
acter. I rather think that it was as well. They never 
would have rubbed along together. They were both 
earnest reformers, but Dickens's views were the result of 
instinct and emotion; Harriet Martineau's were the result 
of reasoning. She was kind-hearted, generous, sympa- 
thetic, but still, in her work for social reform and in her 
propagandist writings, there is revealed more brain than 



378 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

heart. The heart is not lacking, but the emotions are 
controlled by a strong, almost masculine mind. Dickens, 
on the other hand, was almost feminine in his liability to 
be swayed by his emotions. They would quickly have 
clashed in regard to their views on women, for instance. 
Indeed, they did, as we shall see in a moment. 

Then, in matters of economy Dickens did not please her. 
But she had a great admiration for him, nevertheless. "Of 
Mr. Dickens," she says, "I have seen but little in face- 
to-face intercourse; but I am glad to have enjoyed that 
little." She refers to his "erroneousness in matters of 
science" (quoting Oliver Twist and Hard Times in partic- 
ular), and says "The more fervent and inexhaustible his 
kindliness (and it is fervent and inexhaustible), the more 
important it is that it should be well informed and well 
directed, that no errors of his may mislead his readers 
on the one hand or lessen his own genial influence on the 
other." 

She was asked to write for Household Words when that 
periodical was first published. She hesitated. She dis- 
liked writing for magazines, but eventually she decided to 
make an exception in this case because its wide circulation 
went far to compensate for the ordinary objections to this 
mode of authorship. And for three or four years she wrote 
frequently — stories, picturesque accounts of manufactures 
and their productive processes, articles on personal in- 
firmities (the treatment of blindness, deafness, idiotcy, 
etc.), and so on. 

In 1854, however, she ceased to write for the paper. She 
disapproved of "the principles, or want of principles, on 
which the magazine was carried on," and she thought the 
proprietors "grievously inadequate to their function, 
philosophically and morally." She held that she could 
not write her views on the Woman's position in a magazine 
in which Dickens had already expressed his totally dif- 
ferent views. There was logic in this. We must bear in 
mind that the articles in Household Words were not 
signed, and expressions of opinion contained in them were 
inevitably — and, I take it, designedly — accepted as 
Dickens's opinion. Therefore, such a complete inconsis- 
tency would have been absurd. 



TWO LADIES 379 

But later another difference arose. She was asked to 
write a tale for a Christmas number, and she wrote "The 
Missionary." * But it was rejected, "because the public 
would say that Mr. Dickens was turning Catholic," and 
because Wills and Dickens "would never publish anything, 
fact or fiction, which gave a favourable view of any one 
under the influence of the Catholic faith." She tells us 
that from that time her confidence and comfort in House- 
hold Words were gone, and she could never again write 
fiction for them, nor anything in which principle or feeling 
were concerned. So far, so good; but there presently ap- 
peared in Household Words a story in which a Catholic 
priest was held up to contumely. She wrote to Wills: 

"The last thing I am likely to do is to write for 
an anti-Catholic publication, and least of all when it 
is anti-Catholic on the sly. I have had little hope of 
Household Words since the proprietors refused to 
print an historical fact (otherwise approved of) on 
the ground that the hero was a Jesuit: and now that 
they follow up this suppression of an honourable truth 
by the insertion of a dishonourable fiction (or fact — 
no matter which), they can expect no support from 
advocates of religious liberty or lovers of fair-play. 
. . . I might as well write for the 'Record' news- 
paper; and, indeed, so far better, that the 'Record' 
avows its anti-Catholic course. . . . No, I have no 
more to say to Household Words, and you will prefer 
my telling you plainly why, and giving you this much 
light on the views your course has occasioned in one 
who was a hearty well-wisher to Household Words as 
long as possible." 

Here, it seems to me, her logic was at fault. She had 
urged consistency in the case of the position of women, in 
this matter she objected to consistency. Dickens's atti- 
tude towards the Catholic Church was a very astonishing 
trait in one who in almost everything was so tolerant, and 
who numbered among his best-loved friends members of 
that Church; but, given the fact of his views, and remem- 
1 Included in "Sketches from Life." 



380 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

bering again the anonymity of the contents of his maga- 
zine, he was surely entitled to print something unfavour- 
able or antagonistic to that Church, and to refuse to print 
something in its favour. Without being understood as ap- 
proving of his point of view, one may surely say that if 
Miss Martineau wanted consistency it was surely incon- 
sistent of her to object to it when it was offered to her. 

Thus ended her connection with Household Words. 
There was no quarrel; she and Dickens and Wills parted 
friends, but I can find no record of any further inter- 
course at all. 



CHAPTER LXXIV 

ARTHUR AND ALBERT SMITH AND GEORGE DOLBY 

In the spring of 1858 Dickens commenced those read- 
ings which so took the world by storm, and made him per- 
sonally better known to his readers than any other novel- 
ist, before or since. In connection therewith he had, at 
different times, three managers — Arthur Smith, Mr. 
Headlands, and George Dolby. The first was a well- 
beloved friend long before readings were ever thought of, 
the second was merely a servant and that only for a short 
time, the last-named, at first only a servant, became a 
trusted business confidant, a valued friend, and a much- 
liked companion. 

Smith and his brother Albert were intimate with Dickens 
from the early years, though I cannot ascertain when they 
first became acquainted. His name first occurs in Forster's 
book in connection with the death of Douglas Jerrold, in 
the letter suggesting a series of theatrical performances, 
etc., for the benefit of the widow and family. "I have got 
hold of Arthur Smith," writes Dickens, "as the best man of 
business I know, and go to work to-morrow morning." In the 
following year the famous readings commenced with Smith 
as manager. One hundred and twenty-five readings were 
given between April 16, 1858 and October 1859, and Smith 
went with him everywhere as his "friend and secretary." 
Through all the tour his "zealous friendship and pleasant 
companionship" were a joy to Dickens, and almost every 
one of his letters written during the tour contains some 
hearty and genial reference to his manager. All these ref- 
erences, humorous, and breathing a deep friendship, also 
reveal how valuable Smith was to Dickens, taking every 
detail of business off his hands. Dickens simply had to 
read; Smith saw to everything else, and saw to it thor- 

381 



382 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

oughly. Needless to say, when the second series was fixed 
up, no other man was thought of as manager, but Smith's 
health, never, apparently, very good, broke down com- 
pletely. The series commenced in 1861, and Smith super- 
intended only the first six, which were all given in London. 
His illness was a grief to Dickens, not simply because he 
had come to regard the man as indispensable, but because 
he loved him. 

The end came in October. "Poor dear Arthur is a sad 
loss to me," wrote Dickens to his daughter, "and indeed 
I was very fond of him." To Mr. H. G. Adams he wrote: 
"My readings are a sad subject to me just now, for I am 
going away on the twenty-eighth to read fifty times, and I 
have lost Mr. Arthur Smith — a friend whom I can never 
replace — who always went with me, and transacted, as no 
other man ever can, all the business connected with them, 
and without whom, I fear, they will be dreary and weary 
to me." To Macready he wrote: "The death of Arthur 
Smith has caused me great distress and anxiety. I had 
a great regard for him, and he made the reading part of 
my life as light and pleasant as it could be made. I had 
hoped to bring him to see you, and had pictured to myself 
how amused and interested you would have been with his 
wonderful tact and consummate mastery of arrangement. 
But it's all over." And finally, to Miss Hogarth he wrote 
during the tour: "I miss poor Arthur dreadfully. It is 
scarcely possible to imagine how much. It is not only that 
his loss to me socially is quite irreparable, but that the 
sense I used to have of compactness and comfort about 
me while I was reading is quite gone. And when I come 
out for the ten minutes, when I used to find him always 
ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. 
I cannot but fancy, too, that the audience must miss the 
old specialty of a pervading gentleman." 

Albert Smith had nothing to do with the readings, but 
the two brothers may well be linked together. He was a 
very popular member of the Dickens circle, particularly 
in the Tavistock House days. He had qualities that must 
have made his presence at those Twelfth Night parties a 
veritable delight. Mr. R. Renton says: "Albert Smith's 
great attraction was his buoyant, happy spirit, his care- 



ARTHUR AND ALBERT SMITH 383 

less, irresponsible nature, and his keen enjoyment of that 
Bohemian side of the life of his day, of which Dickens and 
Ins friends made the very most, and of which, in this twen- 
tieth century, there does not exist even the merest shred." 
This Bohemian of Bohemians, as Sir Frank Marzials calls 
him, enjoyed life at its fullest. Happiness, light-hearted- 
ness, generosity, always characterised Albert Smith, and 
it would have been surprising indeed if he had not been a 
prominent member of the Dickens circle. His marriage 
with a daughter of the Keeleys brought him into close 
touch with the circle, of which he was soon a very popular 
member. Canon Ainger has told us how Smith would 
drop in at Tavistock House "after a two or three thou- 
sandth ascent of Mont Blanc, but never refusing at our 
earnest entreaty to sit down to the piano and sing us 'My 
Lord Tomnoddy,' " or Ins own latest version of 'Gaglig- 
nani's Messenger.' " Be it noted that the first piece played 
by the children was Smith's burletta of "Guy Fawkes." 

In 1845 Smith, with Dickens's approval and assistance, 
dramatised The Cricket on the Hearth. He worked from 
the proofs of the story so that the play was produced by 
the Keeleys at the Lyceum the same day that the book 
was published. In the previous year Smith had written 
a short prologue for Edward Stirling's adaptation of 
Martin Chuzzlewit — "Mrs. Harris" — which was played 
at the Strand Theatre. And in 1846 he dramatised The 
Battle of Life for the Keeleys. Again he had Dickens's 
approval, and the novelist came home from Paris expressly 
to attend rehearsals. 

Shortly before he died, Arthur Smith urged that his 
deputy, Headlands, should succeed him as manager of the 
readings. Dickens respected that wish, and Headlands 
was engaged, but he did not prove a success. He had been 
a good deputy, but he was not equal to the full responsi- 
bility, and throughout this second series Dickens had 
anxieties and worries that he had never known under 
Smith's management, and was not to know again. 

When the third series was arranged in 1866, George 
Dolby was appointed to travel with Dickens as Messrs. 
Chappell's representative and manager. There was no 
thought of companionship. Dolby was there as a respon- 



384 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

sible servant, and W. H. Wills travelled with Dickens as 
companion, and, to a degree, as secretary. Dolby was 
scarcely thrown into the novelist's company at all. But 
presently the latter began to realise that he had found a 
first-class manager, and, of course, Wills could not be per- 
petually travelling up and down the country just to keep 
him company. So gradually the manager became more in- 
timate, and at last developed into a congenial companion 
and well-liked friend. And when proposals for a tour in 
America became insistent, and Dickens was so unsettled as 
to whether to go or not, he had developed such confidence 
in Dolby, that he decided to send him across the Atlantic 
to see how the land lay, and to be guided by his report. 
We all know the result. 

Dolby went to the United States as Dickens' manager, 
and through all that tremendous time proved a good and 
loyal friend. He has told the story of the tour, and I 
shall not touch upon it here, except to recall the watchful 
care with which he looked after "the Chief" whom he had 
come to love so well. Over and over again in his letters 
home Dickens makes reference to this watchful care. "He 
is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a doctor," is 
one of his tributes. 

That tour cemented the friendship. Several times Dolby 
was a guest at Gadshill, and after the return from 
America he lunched with Dickens at All the Year Round 
office at least once a week. Dickens had visited him at his 
house at Ross before the tour, and after it — in January 
1869 — he spent a week-end there. He gave Dolby's little 
girl a Shetland pony, and stood sponsor to his manager's 
little son. 

Dolby, of course, managed the final series of readings in 
this country. 



CHAPTER LXXV 

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 

Hans Christian Andersen's friendship with Dickens 
was formed in 1847, but his chief associations with the novel- 
ist were during his visit to Gadshill, ten years later, and so 
I have left him until now. He was one of Dickens's most 
enthusiastic hero-worshippers. Indeed, it seems clear that 
his adoration of Dickens eventually became a real nuisance, 
so that the English novelist quietly dropped him. I cannot 
but think that the Dane must have been a disappointing 
sort of individual to a man like Dickens. The Englishman 
was emotional, of course, but he was always a man in the 
company of men. That can scarcely be said of Andersen. 
He was of a morbid turn of mind, and he was decidedly — 
yes, babyish. A kind word, and like a sensitive, delicate 
child, he would shed tears ; a word of encouragement, and 
he was in the dust at the feet of him who had uttered that 
word; a harsh word, an adverse criticism, and he suffered 
agony. Very naturally Dickens felt drawn towards the 
author of "The Ugly Duckling," and he took some special 
notice of him in 1847. He saw but little of him then, how- 
ever. Ten years later Andersen stayed at Gadshill, and 
then he was in paradise. His raptures over his host and 
his host's family, and the house and all the surrounding 
country, suggest the transports of an imaginative slum 
kiddie who finds himself in a green field for the first time 
in his life. To all his friends he wrote in the same strain, 
and when he returned to Denmark, Dickens received from 
him similar letters. This childish sort of conduct must 
have become very tiresome, but there was worse than that. 
Andersen lived in his friendship with the great English 
novelist whom he seems to have pestered with letters in- 
troducing this, that, or the other friend. Certain it is that 
at last Dickens cold-shouldered him, and this is the reason 

385 



386 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

suggested by Andersen's biographer. Anyhow, with all the 
testimony that we have to Dickens's loyalty in friendship 
we may be quite sure that he did not turn Andersen down 
without some very good reason. 

There is another point. If there is one thing more than 
another that would be assumed about Hans Christian 
Andersen from a reading of his books, it is that he must 
have had, in common with Dickens, a great love for chil- 
dren. Not so, however. Andersen resembled a lot of peo- 
ple that we all know; he liked nice clean and bright little 
boys and girls, and to children that he liked he could be 
very charming; but childhood in itself had no special 
charms for him, and his fairy tales were never regarded 
by him as of very much account. Imagine Dickens read- 
ing those tales and saying enthusiastically: "Here is a man 
absolutely after my own heart !" Imagine his coming to 
know that man intimately, and the shock that he would 
get when he learned the truth. In fact, Andersen was a 
shallow sort of man. In matters of friendship he had little 
to give and demanded a great deal. 

I think there can be little purpose in pointing to the 
fact that Andersen, like Dickens, had hard struggles in 
boyhood. Indeed, I think the similarity — up to a point — 
of their early experiences must have rather accentuated 
their lack of sympathy in later years. Dickens never suf- 
fered quite such severe privations in boyhood as Ander- 
sen did. The latter's sufferings were physical; that is to 
say, he positively did starve at times and wandered the 
streets of a big city penniless and friendless. Dickens's 
sufferings were of a different kind. He was in poverty, 
certainly, but mother and father were with him, and we 
know that his father, at any rate, won his affection. His 
blacking factory experiences were painful, because he was 
a boy of imagination with a conviction — which was not 
begotten of snobbishness — that he was superior to his 
environment. It may be said that Andersen was the more 
fortunate of the two in that he found patrons — the State 
itself educated him — but I doubt it. Dickens, as his father 
put it, "may be said to have educated himself." He learned 
endurance and self-reliance, and he grew up to a man of 
fibre. Andersen certainly did not. 




Hans Christian Andersen 
From a Drawing by E. M. Bmrentzen 



HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 387 

Very likely Dickens first came to know of Andersen 
through William Jerdan, who was the first man to intro- 
duce the Danish writer to the English people. Andersen 
read Dickens's books very early, and in 1846 he wrote to 
Jerdan : 

"How I should like to shake the hand of 'Boz.' 
When I read his books I often think I have seen such 
tilings, and feel I could write like that. Do not mis- 
understand me; and if you are a friend of 'Boz' and 
he sees these lines, he will not consider it presump- 
tion; but I do not know how better to express myself 
than to say that what completely captivates me seems 
to become part of myself. As the wind whistles round 
his bell-rope, I have often heard it whistle on a cold 
wet autumn evening, and the chirp of the cricket I 
remember well in the cosy corner of my parents' 
humble room." 

In the following year he paid Iris first visit to England, 
and he met Dickens at Lady Blessington's. To that lady 
Dickens had written: "I must see Andersen," and he came 
up to town from Broadstairs specially for that purpose. 
He did so a second time and brought with him a set of 
his books, in every volume of which he had written: "To 
Hans Christian Andersen, from his friend and admirer, 
Charles Dickens." At the end of his stay in England, 
Andersen visited Dickens at Broadstairs and dined with 
him, and the following morning Dickens walked over to 
Ramsgate pier to say "Good-bye!" "We pressed each 
other's hands, and he looked at me so kindly with his 
shrewd sympathetic eyes, and as the ship went off, there 
he stood waving his hat and looking so gallant, so youth- 
ful, and so handsome. Dickens was the last who sent me 
a greeting from dear England's shore." 

Not long afterwards, Bentley published "A Christmas 
Greeting to my English Friends," which contained seven of 
the fairy tales, and "A Poet's Day Dreams," containing 
fourteen new stories, and the dedication was to Dickens, 
the author declaring in his preface: "I feel a desire, a long- 
ing, to transplant in England the first produce of my poetic 



388 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

garden as a Christmas greeting, and I send it to you, my 
dear, noble Charles Dickens, who, by your works had been 
previously dear to me, and since our meeting have taken 
root in my heart." 

Ten years were to pass before the two writers should 
meet again. They certainly corresponded during that 
period, but none of the letters has been preserved. In March 
1857 Andersen wrote to Dickens that he proposed to visit 
England during the coming summer: 

"Little Dorrit enthrals me entirely. I would, and 
must admire you for the sake of this one book alone, 
even if you had not previously bestowed upon the 
world those splendid compositions David Copperfield, 
Nelly, 1 and the rest. When I last saw and spoke with 
you in England some twelve years ago, and felt a 
greater regard for you, if possible, than before, you 
presented me with your published works, which are a 
real treasure to me. I possess the later books, but 
you must give me a copy of Little Dorrit when we 
greet each other again, for it will certainly not find 
a more appreciative admiring reader than myself. . . . 
Keep a corner in your heart for me. . . . God's bless- 
ing and delight be yours as you delight us all." 

In that same letter he wrote: "I beg you to send me 
a few lines, in April at the latest, to say whether you will 
be in London this summer . . . for it is not for London's 
sake I am coming to England. The visit is for you alone." 
He was sent into the seventh heaven by Dickens's reply, 
which was an invitation to stay at Gadshill. "Your letter 
has made me infinitely happy," he responded. "It has quite 
possessed me; I am overcome with joy at the thought of 
being with you for a short time, of living in your house 
and forming one of your circle! You do not know how 
much I value it, and how in my heart I thank God, your- 
self, and your wife!" 

He came, and had whatever afterwards he declared was 
the happiest time of his life. The whole of his time was 
spent with Dickens, and he never went to London save in 
1 Thus did he always write and speak of The Old Curiosity Shop. 



HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 389 

his host's company. He walked arm in arm through the 
London streets with Dickens, and he tasted of the joys of 
paradise. To all his friends he wrote rapturous accounts 
of his visit. To the Queen Dowager of Denmark, for in- 
stance, he wrote: "I have now been in England five weeks, 
and have spent the whole time with Charles Dickens in his 
charming villa at Gadshill. . . . Dickens is one of the 
most amiable men that I know, and possesses as much heart 
as intellect." And then he told how he had been one of 
the fifty honoured guests at the Gallery of Illustration when 
Dickens and his friends had played "The Frozen Deep" 
before the Queen, the Prince Consort, and the King of the 
Belgians. He attended the first Handel Festival at the 
Crj'stal Palace with the Dickens family, and he visited Miss 
Coutts with his host, whilst, needless to say, Dickens 
showed him all the beauties of Kent. 

The visit came to an end on July 15, and Dickens ac- 
companied his guest to Maidstone to see him off. "He was 
like a dear brother up to the last moment." 

After his return to his native land, Andersen wrote often 
to Dickens in the same strain of enthusiastic hero-worship, 
and for a time Dickens replied cordially, but suddenly it 
all ceased, and in the last fifteen years of Andersen's life 
there is absolutely no mention of the English novelist. 
Andersen's biographer says: "The enthusiasm he felt for 
him in 1857 was too perfervid to last very long, and 
Dickens's very natural hesitation to foregather indiscrimi- 
nately with all the Danes whom he was in the habit of send- 
ing from time to time with letters of introduction seems at 
last to have somewhat offended Andersen." 

It was a pity, but still it is good to know that Charles 
Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen were, if only for a 
period, such close friends. 



CHAPTER LXXVI 

CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER 

Charles Albert Fechter came into the novelist's life 
and went out of it as a dream that passes in the night. 
For a brief span of years there was an extraordinary friend- 
ship, and the actor seems to have exercised a fascination 
over the novelist that was unique in the latter's life. Dickens 
was his backer in England and supported him with the great- 
est enthusiasm. Forster says: "He became his helper in 
disputes, adviser on literary points, referee in matters of 
management, and for some years no face was more familiar 
than the French comedian's at Gadshill or in the office of 
his journal." Dickens formed a tremendous estimate of 
Fechter's genius, and did all in his power to push him to 
the fore. And for the man himself he developed a positive 
hero-worship. There was no more frequent visitor at Gads- 
hill, letters innumerable passed between the two, and again 
and again Dickens wrote in terms of praise and of cordial 
personal regard. "Count always on my fidelity and true 
attachment" ; "I am, my dear Fechter, ever your cordial and 
affectionate friend"; "I shall be heartily pleased to see you 
again, my dear Fechter, and to share your triumphs with 
the real earnestness of a real friend" — and so on. 

One can only wonder at Dickens's obsession. That such 
it was I am sure. I have heard friends of the novelist speak 
of it with wonderment, and speak slightingly of Fechter; 
and Forster seems to justify me when he says : "But theatres 
and their affairs are things of a season, and even Dickens's 
whim and humour will not revive for us any interest in them." 
Mr. R. Renton reads into this an unaccountable sneer at 
the theatre. If such it were, it would indeed be unaccount- 
able in view of Forster's life-long liking for the theatre ; but 
I do not so interpret it. Rather do I see in it a "letting 

390 



CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER 391 

down lightly" of the actor (who was still alive when Forster 
wrote), for whom few of Dickens's friends had any regard, 
whose fascination for Dickens was a puzzle to most of his 
friends. 

How Dickens came to know Fechter is told by James T. 
Fields : 

"His genuine enthusiasm for Mr. Fechter's acting 
was most interesting. He loved to describe seeing him 
first quite by accident in Paris, having strolled into a 
little theatre there one night. 'He was making love 
to a woman,' Dickens said, 'and he elevated her, as well 
as himself, by the sentiment in which he enveloped her, 
that they trod in a purer ether and in another sphere 
quite elevated out of the present. "By heavens 1" I 
said to myself; "a man who can do this can do any- 
thing." I never saw two people more purely and in- 
tensely elevated by the power of love. The manner 
also,' he continued, 'in which he presses the hem of the 
dress of Lucy in "The Bride of Lammermoor," is some- 
thing wonderful. The man has genius in him which is 
unmistakable.' " 

It was entirely owing to Dickens's enthusiasm that Fech- 
ter came to London. He opened in "Ruy Bias" and took 
the town by storm. Then he appeared in Shakespeare, and 
his "Hamlet" created a sensation, and had a remarkable 
run. On December 26, 1867, he appeared as Obenreizer in 
No Thoroughfare at the Adelphi. The play ran there for 
150 nights, and then was transferred to the Royal Standard 
Theatre, Shoreditch. 

Fechter gave Dickens the Swiss chalet which he caused 
to be erected in the shrubbery at Gadshill. He furnished 
it, too, for we read in the issue of "The Gad's Hill Gazette," 
dated August 19, 1865, that "Mr. C. Fechter, who left on 
Sunday for Glasgow (where he intends to begin his pro- 
vincial tour), has just completed his charming present of a 
chalet, by furnishing it in a very handsome manner." Writ- 
ing of this chalet in that same year, Dickens says: "It will 
really be a very pretty thing, and in the summer (suppos- 
ing it not to be blown away in the spring) the upper room 



392 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

will make ft charming study." Forster tells us that it really 
did become a great resource in the summer months, and 
much of Dickens's work was done there. And it was in 
this chalet, in the room "up among the branches of the 
trees," that he wrote for the last time on that lovely June 
afternoon in 1870. 

In 1869 Fechter went to America, and Dickens heralded 
him with an article in the "Atlantic Monthly," in which he 
spoke with the greatest enthusiasm of the actor's genius, and 
pointed out that his appreciation was not the result of 
personal regard, but that the personal regard had sprung 
out of his appreciation. "I cannot wish my friend a better 
audience than he will have in the American people," the 
article concluded, "and I cannot wish them a better actor 
than they will have in my friend." He died while Fechter 
was in America. 



CHAPTER LXXVII 

THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 

I have always wondered at the neglect meted out to John 
Forster. It is said that he is known to the present genera- 
tion only as the friend of Dickens, and I believe it is true. 
It is something to be sure of immortality as the friend of 
such a man as Dickens, but quite apart from that Forster 
was a very remarkable man who does not deserve the neg- 
lect that he suffers. I think I do not exaggerate when I say 
that no man exercised a greater influence upon Victorian 
literature than this self-made man, who established himself 
as one of the ablest editors of his time, one of the most 
authoritative and constructive dramatic, art, and literary 
critics, and, above all, as the trusted friend, confidant, and 
adviser of practically every writer of his time that mat- 
tered. Indeed, Forster was a greater man than this genera- 
tion imagines. It cannot be said of him, as it was said by 
Johnson of Goldsmith: "Sir, he was a great man, a very 
great man"; but we do him an injustice when we regard 
him just as the friend of Dickens, only that and nothing 
more. I am not, of course, intending to belittle his claim 
on that score; what I do want to insist upon is that if 
Forster had never met Dickens he would still have had 
strong claims upon our grateful remembrance. He was very 
nearly a great man, for certain. A little more play of fancy, 
a little less of the Podsnappian self-complacency, and he 
would have been one of our greatest biographers. As it is, 
he wrote some biographies that we could not afford to lose. 
He did not produce one truly great work, but he cannot be 
denied a place in the front rank of second-class biographers, 
even if his Life of Dickens does not (I am inclined to think 
it does) place him in the rear rank of first-class biographers. 
Add to the fact, the tremendous influence he wielded both as 

393 



394 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Editor of the "Examiner" and as the intimate friend of 
practically every contemporary writer of any pretensions 
at all, and we may reasonably echo Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's 
expression of surprise at the fact that Forster has never 
been included in any series of biographies of leading writers. 
In this sense Forster's friendship with Dickens has 
counted rather to his disadvantage. Dickens was a man of 
overwhelming and fascinating personality, and he has been 
allowed to overshadow Forster, without whose staunch 
friendship, loyal service in business and family affairs, and 
reliable advice in literary matters, he might not have been 
the man he was. For it was advantageous to Dickens very 
often that the staid, level-headed, splendidly loyal John 
Forster was inevitably at hand to sit upon his coat tails, 
as it were, whenever necessary. By the present generation 
Forster is too lightly dismissed as "the friend of Dickens." 
He would be proud to be remembered in that capacity, of 
course, but we are unjust to him when we think only of 
that. His editorship of the "Examiner," and his indispen- 
sable books prove the injustice of a too scant dismissal of 
him as "Dickens's Boswell." Boswell was little more than 
tolerated by Burke and Reynolds and Hawkins and others 
because he was the friend of their common friend, Johnson. 
Forster was loved and trusted by Dickens's friends, or most 
of them, as he was by Dickens himself. If he had no other 
claim to a niche in the Temple of Fame he still has this one : 
that he was the champion Friend of his time. He was a 
friend of Lamb's, and Elia penned many delightful letters 
to him. He was the friend of Browning, the friend of 
Lytton; Carlyle loved him, and turned to him as he turned 
to nobody else save Froude; he was loved by Macready; he 
was the friend of Ainsworth, of Tennyson, of Landor, of 
Leigh Hunt, of Proctor, of Gladstone — of almost everybody 
that mattered. On Forster's friendships, Mr. Richard Ren- 
ton's book published a few years ago, is a positive revela- 
tion. That author points out this very noteworthy fact: 
that, with one exception, all Forster's friendships were last- 
ing friendships. The exception was the greatest of all — 
save the Dickens friendship — namely, that with Browning, 
the quarrel with whom was the most lamentable incident in 
Forster's life. But that friendship lasted over many years. 




John Foestee 
From an Engraving by C. H. Jeens 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 395 

through much storm and stress, and how much the poet 
valued it is proved by his inscription in a presentation copy 
of "Pauline": "To my true friend, John Forster," and by 
his inscription in a copy of "Paracelsus" — "to John Fors- 
ter, Esq. (my early understander), with true thanks for his 
generous and seasonable public confession of faith in me." 
Carlyle — to whom Forster was "Fuz" — knew the value of 
this remarkable man. How completely he trusted him is 
proved by this fact : when he wrote the story of his domestic 
life he entrusted the manuscript to Froude, with an injunc- 
tion that it was not to be published within ten years of his 
death, and then in Froude's absolute discretion — absolute 
discretion, that is, save only that he might, if he so desired, 
consult John Forster. 

But it is truly extraordinary how famous men of his time 
relied upon Forster, and turned to him unhesitatingly, con- 
fident in his sound sense and level-headedness. And note 
how he helped and encouraged young men who were striving 
to make their way, and merited assistance. Henry Morley 
says: 

"The best actors, painters, poets, novelists, his- 
torians of his time were all his friends. They found 
constantly in the 'Examiner' a definite appreciation of 
their work; prompt, hearty, and just appreciation, as 
distinguished from vague praise or commonplaces of 
reviewing. When afterwards they met their critic, came 
under the influence of his strong sympathy with all that 
was best in their aims, felt the sincerity of his nature, 
and learnt to rely on the soundness of his judgment, 
they were drawn inevitably into friendship. . . . There 
was not a young man of letters labouring for recogni- 
tion and deserving it who could not find his way to the 
grasp of John Forster's strong hand, be encouraged by 
his ready smile, and helped by his sound counsel. He 
was intolerant of work with an unworthy aim, and 
quickened in all his friends 'the noble appetite for what 
is best,' that showed itself not only in his public writ- 
ing, but also gave worth to his familiar conversation." 

"Again and again," adds Morley, "the hearts of earnest 



396 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

men leapt out towards him who had been the first to know 
the meaning of their utterance, and with bold emphasis had 
been the first not only to call the world to listen, but clearly 
to set forth the reason of his faith in what they said or 
did." 

And yet it is difficult to arrive at anything like a satisfy- 
ing idea of what manner of man Forster was. "A har- 
bitrary cove," the cabman called him, and so he was, but 
assuredly that is not all. The prototype of Podsnap, Mr. 
Fitzgerald says, but surely that is not sufficient. Mr. Fitz- 
gerald also likens him to Dr. Johnson. I think the com- 
parison is not unhappy. He was rough and uncompromis- 
ing, says Mr. Fitzgerald again; lacking in breeding, says 
Macready, in one of his irritable moods, but probably with 
much truth. Sir Theodore Martin says : "Forster seemed to 
me a very dictatorial person." Douglas Jerrold, picking up 
a pencil stump, remarked that it was like Forster, "short, 
thick, and full of lead," which was just one of his facetious 
remarks, but contained a considerable degree of truth. Dr. 
John Brown said : "Forster is a 'heavy swell,' and has always 
been to me offensive, and he has no sense or faculty of 
humour." 

Macready pays tribute again and again. We have to 
make allowance for that Irish quickness of temper in the 
famous tragedian which he himself was always lamenting. 
In his Diary we read some most outrageous things about 
many of his friends ; most of them come under his lash at 
times : but these things were written during his "paddies," 
and must not be taken alone as indicating his real feelings. 
And so, though he writes in bitterest vein about Forster at 
times, the Diary as a whole conclusively proves his affection 
for the man. In it may be found many proofs of Forster's 
loyal friendship. Hablot Knight Browne did not come 
within the same degree of friendship as Macready, but he 
was a friend of Forster's, and the following letter throws 
a light on the latter's capacity for rendering unassuming 
service : 

"My dear Browne, 

"They are getting a little anxious at White 
Friars. I enclose you a cheque — you charged too little 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 397 

for the design of the cover. I took the liberty of 
changing the five guineas into eight guineas, and you 
will find a cheque hereto corresponding. This liberty 
I am sure you will excuse, and believe me, my dear 
Browne, always and sincerely yours, 

"John Forster." 

And we have Bulwer Lytton's testimony as follows: 

"A most sterling man with an intellect at once mas- 
sive and delicate. Few indeed have his strong practical 
sense and sound judgment; fewer still unite with such 
qualities his exquisite appreciation of latent beauties in 
literary art. Hence, in ordinary life there is no safer 
adviser about literary work, especially poetry ; no more 
refined critic. A large heart naturally accompanies so 
masculine an understanding. He has a rare capacity 
for affection which embraces many friendships without 
loss of depth or warmth in one. Most of my literary 
contemporaries are his intimate companions, and their 
jealousies of each other do not diminish their trust in 
him. More than any living critic he has served to es- 
tablish reputations. Tennyson and Browning owe him 
much in their literary careers. Me, I think, he served 
in that way less than any of his other friends, but 
indeed I know of no critic to whom I have been much 
indebted for any position I hold in literature. In more 
private matters I am greatly indebted to his counsel. 
His reading is extensive. What faults he has lie on the 
surface. He is sometimes bluff to rudeness, but all such 
faults of manner (and they are his only ones) are but 
trifling inequalities in a nature solid and valuable as a 
block of gold." 

That, I think, is the best picture of John Forster that 
has been drawn. "Harbitrary cove"? So he was, but how 
easy, and, alas ! how common, it is to take hold of some catch 
phrase like that and repeat it until the world comes to 
think that it says all there is to be said. Forster's arbitra- 
riness was really no more than a mannerism. He was, as 
Lytton says, a man of masculine understanding, a man with 



398 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

a rare capacity for affection which embraced many friend- 
ships without loss of depth or warmth in one, a rare literary 
critic utterly devoid of petty jealousies, who helped to make 
many a man and never lifted his hand to unmake or to injure 
any man, a man of staunch loyalty, and sound integrity, a 
man to be relied upon implicitly in any transaction. 

Dr. John Browne says that Forster had no sense of 
humour. We may doubt that of a man who was a friend 
of Charles Lamb, Tom Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Mark 
Lemon, John Leech, R. H. Barham, and Charles Dickens. 
We may doubly doubt it of a man so full of human sym- 
pathy as he was. Macready says that Forster was lacking 
in breeding. Very likely he had not the manners of a 
D'Orsay. There was no veneer about him. He was the 
solid, unvarnished oak, rough cut, but finely grained, solid 
and steady. Mr. Renton sums up his character very aptly 
in the one word "reliable." Before all else and above all 
else, he was reliable. The famous authors of his time, the 
famous artists, the famous actors, yes, and the famous 
statesmen relied upon him implicitly, and he never failed 
them. 

Yates says: "Forster, partly owing to natural tempera- 
ment, partly to harassing official work, and ill-health, was 
almost as much over, as Dickens was under their respective 
years." Yates knew Forster only in the later years of the 
latter's life, but his remark applies to the man of any 
period. True, Forster writes of the joyous days in the late 
'thirties and the 'forties with a sigh of regret for a day 
that is dead, but I never read of those boisterous frolics 
which he records without picturing him as the most sober 
and serious member of the party. When I read of the mem- 
orable trip to Cornwall — Dickens, Maclise, Stanfield, and 
Forster — and the merrymaking right into the wee small 
hours, I always picture Forster as the member of the party 
upon whom the others would rely for a reminder when bed- 
time came. Not that I mean to suggest that he was a drag 
upon the wheels of enjoyment, but he was what Dickens 
would call a "buttoned-up man." "All buttoned-up men 
are weighty," says the novelist, and that is exactly what 
Forster was. On these merry occasions he was the most 
ponderous — the most weighty man of the party, and though 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 399 

he entered into the enjoyment thoroughly, it is difficult to 
picture him giving way to that abandon that characterised 
Dickens and Maclise, for instance. Dickens records that 
during the Cornwall trip, "the luggage was in Forster's de- 
partment." It is symbolical. On this point Yates confirms 
me: "Though Forster's shrewd common-sense, sound judg- 
ment, and deep affection for his friend commanded, as was 
right, Dickens's loving and grateful acceptance of his views, 
and though the communion between them was never for a 
moment weakened, it was not as a companion 'in his lighter 
hour' that Dickens, in his latter days looked on Forster. 
. . ." Though we must not forget that in his earlier 
days Forster was the companion, with Maclise and Ains- 
worth, and the Landseers, of all the "lighter hours." 

The friendship with Dickens is really something of a 
puzzle, and I hope I run no risk of being misunderstood 
when I say that I think it was largely due to Dickens's per- 
ception of worth, and his ability, for worth's sake, to ignore 
qualities which, in the best of friends, may be trying. Never 
would Forster play second fiddle anywhere, if he could help 
it, Mr. Fitzgerald says. He was a despot, he was dictato- 
rial — offensively so to those who could not or would not 
look beneath the surface. I am not prepared to assert that 
Dickens was a despot, but nothing is more certain than 
that he had to be "cock of the walk" in any company. 
Friendship between two such men, strong, lasting, heart-to- 
heart friendship is not common. And seeing that Forster 
had faults of manner which Dickens had not, seeing that 
undoubtedly the real nature and charm of the man were 
beneath the surface, there may be justification for the asser- 
tion that in the matter of tolerance Dickens had to give more 
than he demanded. The friendship puzzled many contem- 
poraries. James Payn says : 

"In friendship, which in all other points must needs 
be frank and open, this problem often remains un- 
solved — namely, the friendship of one's friend for some 
other man. D. and E. have the most intimate rela- 
tions with one another, but for the life of him, E. 
cannot understand what D. sees in F. to so endear him 
to him. This was what many of Dickens's friends, and 



400 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

certainly the world at large, said of Forster. It is not 
my business, nor is it in my power to explain the riddle ; 
I rarely met them together without witnessing some 
sparring between them — and sometimes without the 
gloves. On the other hand, I have known Forster to 
pay some compliments to 'The Inimitable' in his patron- 
ising way which the other would acknowledge in his 
drollest manner. It is certain that Forster took the 
utmost interest in Dickens, even to the extent of seeing 
everything he wrote through the press, and as to the 
genuineness of Dickens's regard for him I have the 
most positive proof. I have already said that Dickens 
once wrote to me spelling the word Foster (in Foster 
Brothers) with an r 'because I am always thinking 
of my friend Forster. Long afterwards, in acknowl- 
edging a service which I had been fortunately able to 
do for him, in terms far more generous than it de- 
served, he actually signed the letter, not Charles 
Dickens, but John Forster! When the biography of 
the former appeared, and its editor (sic) was accused 
of misrepresenting himself as standing in a nearer re- 
lation to Dickens than he really was, I thought it only 
fair to Forster to send him those two letters, with 
which — though of course he had no need of the corro- 
boration on such a matter from without — he expressed 
himself greatly pleased." 

Macready describes one of the contests in which the gloves 
were removed. Under date August 16, 1840, he writes: 

"Went to dine with Dickens, and was witness of a 
most painful scene after dinner. Forster, Maclise, and 
myself were the guests. Forster got to one of his head- 
long streams of talk (which he thinks argument), and 
waxed warm, and at last some sharp observation led 
to personal retorts between him and Dickens. He dis- 
played his usual want of tact, and Dickens flew into 
so violent a passion as quite to forget himself, and give 
Forster to understand that he was in his house which 
he should be glad if he would leave. Forster behaved 
very foolishly. I stopped him; spoke to both of them, 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 401 

and observed that for an angry instant they were about 
to destroy a friendship valuable to both. I drew from 
Dickens the admission that he had spoken in passion 
and would not have said what he said could he have 
reflected; but he added that he could not answer for 
his temper under Forster's provocation, and that he 
should be just the same again. Forster behaved very 
weakly; would not accept the repeated acknowledg- 
ment communicated to him that Dickens regretted the 
passion, etc., but stayed, skimbling-skambling, and at 
last, finding that he could obtain no more, made a sort 
of speech accepting what he had before declined. He 
was silent and not recovered — no wonder! — during the 
whole evening. Mrs. Dickens had gone out in tears. 
It was a very painful scene." 

All of which proves very little more than that both 
Dickens and Forster were essentially human. But in face 
of these facts, I think it may be said that the friendship 
of these two men is very positive proof of the possession 
by both of the capacity for looking beneath the surface 
and seeing the true worth of the friend. 

In November 1847 Macready writes in his Diary: "For- 
ster dined to-day ; was very sorry to hear him speak as if 
the long and intimate friendship between himself and Dickens 
was likely to terminate or very much relax. They have 
both faults with their good qualities, but they have been 
too familiar. I hope Dickens is not capricious — not spoiled ; 
he has, however, great excuse." No, Dickens was not ca- 
pricious : that charge was never brought against him. Nor 
was he spoiled, though no man ever had greater excuse. 
Two strong natures had clashed again, and there had been 
another "sparring bout," and Forster's pompous dignity 
had been hurt. The friendship was to last another twenty- 
two years and more, and was to grow closer and closer, only 
to be broken by death. . . . 

"And" (says Mr. Renton) "when at last the cords 
were loosed; the link snapped that had bound each to 
other for just upon forty years, what did it mean to 
Forster? 



402 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

"Briefly this — 

"There were not many to carry Charles Dickens to 
his burial. His nearest and dearest only and a friend 
or two well-nigh as near and dear. 

"Among the latter, the tall, still burly figure, bowed 
through grief and disease, of John Forster was sadly 
conspicuous. Gone all that was autocratic and domi- 
neering about him ; gone the dignity, the imperiousness, 
the harsh 'commandeering' of all else human to his own 
will and pleasure. 

"There remained only the true, inner, natural man, 
shaken with a sorrow such as is not given to every 
man to feel. Himself hopelessly racked with physical 
pain, he appeared almost as if he were burying the 
better part of himself. . . . He had lost his chief 
object in existence; which, until he himself went to join 
his friend, was, I am convinced, mainly sustained in 
and by the occupation of writing that friend's life." 

"He had lost his chief object in existence." Verily, I 
believe Mr. Renton does not exaggerate. From the days of 
their first acquaintance Forster loved Dickens with at least 
a brother's love. There was an air of patronage in his 
affection, but it was the patronage of an elder brother. For, 
as Yates says, though they were born in the same year, 
Forster was older than his years, and Dickens younger. He 
took Dickens under his wing, and positively would have 
stood up against the world in defence of his friend. He was 
constantly rendering service. He negotiated for his friend 
in the most intimate and delicate domestic affairs; he nego- 
tiated Dickens's business affairs for him ; he served him early 
and late for the sake of the love that he bore him. Indeed, 
he was possessed of a very rare capacity for friendship. 
No man that ever breathed was possessed of a more sturdy 
independence, had less of toadyism in his nature, though he 
was the friend of almost every famous man of his time; 
yet in this particular case he was guilty of something like 
idolatry. He would have quarrelled with almost all his 
other friends for Dickens's sake. And maybe that air of 
patronage which sometimes appeared in his relations with 
the novelist was consciously assumed in the true English 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 403 

spirit (of which he was the very embodiment) to hide from 
the world the real depth of his feelings. He was jealous, 
as all men are when in love. He resented it when any other 
man gained the confidence of Dickens. He was even jealous 
of another's popularity. Did he not take umbrage at the 
success of Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," simply because 
it bade fair for a time to rival the popularity of Dickens's 
books ! 

And Dickens was as loyal a friend as was Forster. He 
knew the failings of the "Lincolnshire mammoth," as he 
called his friend, but he knew his worth thoroughly, and 
he accepted Forster's patronage with good-humour and with 
a complete appreciation of the devotion that was ever at 
his service. There are several instances on record in which 
he showed his loyalty. Take the case of Mrs. Lynn Linton. 
In his "Life of Landor" Forster dismissed that lady's friend- 
ship with the poet in a single sentence. It was grossly un- 
fair, but a typical instance of that John Bullish prejudice 
which was his greatest failing. Mrs. Lynn Linton declared 
that Forster acted in this case out of jealousy, and she 
said that he used the "Life" as "a vehicle for his own lauda- 
tion — diverging all other friendships to aggrandise and 
augment his own." Wilkie Collins said exactly the same thing 
about the Life of Dickens, and we will take note of the 
charge presently. Mrs. Lynn Linton was very much hurt, 
and when, at Dickens's request, she wrote a review of the 
book for All the Year Round, she commenced her article: 
"The Life of Walter Savage Landor has yet to be written." 
This could not have appeared in an anonymous magazine 
without the inference that it expressed the Editor's opinion. 
Dickens was too loyal to his friend. He wrote to the lady: 

"Although your article on our old friend is inter- 
esting as a piece of personal remembrance, it does not 
satisfy my desires as a review of Forster's book. It 
could hardly be otherwise than painful to Forster that 
I, one of his oldest literary friends, and certainly, of 
all others, the most intimate and confidential, should 
insert in these pages an account of Landor without a 
word of commendation of a biography that has caused, 
to my knowledge, a world of care and trouble. I find 



404 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

from your letter to my son that you do not think 
well of the said book. Admitting that his life was 
to be written at all, I DO. And it is because I think 
well of it, and wish highly to commend it on what I 
deem to be its deserts, that I am staggered and stopped 
short by your paper and fear I must turn to and write 
another in its stead. I want you to understand the 
case on my own presentation of it, and hence I trouble 
you with this note." 

And so, he wrote the review himself, nevertheless paying 
Mrs. Lynn Linton for the article which he did not use. 
And we have shown how, in the dispute with Bentley in 
1839, Dickens stood loyally by Forster, and very nearly 
quarrelled with Ainsworth. 

It would be absurd to attempt to follow Dickens and 
Forster through their friendship of thirty-four years. In 
that letter to Mrs. Lynn Linton just quoted Dickens de- 
scribed himself as one of Forster's oldest literary friends, 
and "certainly, of all others, the most confidential." How 
far he was in Forster's confidence there is no knowing, but 
it is certain that he confided in Forster as he confided in 
no one else. Forster, I think, had not the need for friend- 
ship in anything like the degree that Dickens had it. True- 
hearted, tender-hearted he was, but he had not that almost 
Celtic emotionalism that characterised his friend. Even if 
he had been a novelist he could never have written the death 
of Little Nell. In that sense he was even more English 
than Dickens. There was in him that typically English 
self-consciousness — fear of wearing his heart on his sleeve 
— that was not in Dickens. He lived in the material world 
far more than Dickens did, and though the latter was cer- 
tainly no fool in business matters, it meant very much to 
him that he had a true and trustworthy friend always at 
hand to advise and assist and to conduct his business affairs 
for him. Living so strenuous an imaginative life as he did, 
Forster's friendship was of incalculable value to him. 
Indeed, without it, I doubt whether his gifts would have 
remained so fresh as they did, his imagination so vigorous 
and unfettered. From the very beginning, Forster, whom 
he described in his will as his "dear and trusty friend," 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 405 

was the man to whom he turned in everything. In disputes 
with publishers it was Forster who was his champion and 
negotiator, and in the saddest event of his life it was the 
same friend who acted on his behalf. So also was it to 
Forster that he turned first of all when he wanted to help 
Leigh Hunt, or the family of Douglas Jerrold. To Forster 
he sent all his proofs ; it was Forster's advice in respect 
thereof that he valued most ; it was Forster who saw his 
books through the press and negotiated with illustrators 
when he was abroad; and it was Forster whom he named as 
his executor in conjunction with Miss Hogarth. 

It is perhaps curious that in his published letters to 
Forster we do not find those protestations of friendship 
that we find in letters to all other friends, but that may 
well be accounted for by the fact that nearly all such letters 
appear in Forster's book, and were sub-edited by him. 
There is one exception, however. In 1845 Forster's only 
brother died, and Dickens wrote to his friend from Genoa: 

"I feel the distance between us now, indeed. I would 
to Heaven, my dearest friend, that I could remind you 
in a manner more lively and affectionate than this dull 
sheet of paper can put on, that you have a Brother 
left. One bound to you by ties as strong as Nature 
ever forged. By ties never to be broken, weakened, 
changed in any way — but to be knotted tighter up, if 
that be possible, until the same end comes to them as 
has come to these. That end but the bright beginning 
of a happier union, I believe; and have never more 
strongly and religiously believed (and oh! Forster, 
with what a sore heart I have thanked God for it) 
than when that shadow has fallen on my own hearth, 
and made it cold and dark as suddenly as in the home 
of that poor girl 3'ou tell me of. ... I have many 
things to say, but cannot say them now. Your attached 
and loving friend for life, and for, I hope, beyond it." 

But, indeed, such protestations were unnecessary; the 
understanding between them was too thorough. Much more 
curious is it that Dickens never dedicated a book to Forster. 
The latter, however, dedicated his Life of Goldsmith to 



406 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

Dickons, and he was godfather to his friend's eldest 
daughter. 

But, of course, the consummation of this friendship is 
the book, the writing of which Mr. Renton says was the 
main solace of Forster's last few years. It was the ful- 
filment of Dickens's wish — of a sacred trust really. In 1847 
the novelist first expressed the wish that if Forster should 
outlive him he should write his biography, and Forster says : 
"though, long before his death, I had ceased to believe it 
likely that I should survive to write about him, he had 
never withdrawn the wish at this early time strongly ex- 
pressed, or the confidences, not only then, but to the very 
eve of his death reposed in me, that was to enable me to 
fulfil it." The writing of that book must have been tor- 
ture to Forster, not merely because Dickens's death had 
meant the tearing away of a part of his very self, but be- 
cause he was in wretched health and nearing his own end. 
It seems to me to be reflected in the book. Always, in the 
record of the early days of their friendship there is a note 
of sadness, as though the writer were sighing for the days 
when the health and strength of early manhood made all 
the world so bright and gay, when all was promise — bright 
promise, and the sun shone sixteen hours out of the twenty- 
four. And in the record of later years, there is the note of 
tiredness, not of disillusionment, but of sadness, and depres- 
sion. But it was a sacred task conscientiously carried out. 
The book is criticised very freely, and when all has been 
said there is, and there can be, no answer to the question: 
"Who else could have written it?" One recent critic com- 
pared it, to its disadvantage, with Boswell's immortal book. 
Let us note Dickens's views on the point. They are con- 
tained in a letter written to Forster himself in 1848: 

"I question very much" (he says) "whether it would 
have been a good thing for every great man to have 
had his Boswell, inasmuch that I think that two Bos- 
wells, or three at the most, would have made great men 
extraordinarily false, and would have set them on 
always playing a part, and would have made distin- 
guished people about them for ever restless and dis- 
trustful. I can imagine a succession of Boswells bring- 




Charles Dickens 

(1868) 
From a Photograph by Ben Gurney of New York 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 407 

ing about a tremendous state of falsehood in society, 
and playing the very deuce with confidence and friend- 
ship." 

With which, I think, we need not hesitate to agree. In 
that same letter, Dickens, referring to his friend's Life of 
Goldsmith, says: "I never will hear the biography com- 
pared with Bos well's except under vigorous protest. For 
I do say that it is mere folly to put into opposite scales a 
book, however amusing and curious, written by an uncon- 
scious coxcomb like that, and one which surveys and grandly 
understands the characters of all the illustrious company 
that move in it." 

It is worth while bearing this in mind when we think of 
comparing Forster's Life of Dickens with Boswell's Life 
of Johnson. The letter concludes with these words : "I 
desire no better for my fame, when my personal dustiness 
shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a 
biographer and such a critic." 

I do not share Dickens's opinion of Boswell, but it is 
difficult to controvert the suggestion that too many Bos- 
wells would bring about a state of insincerity in society 
that would destroy the value of biographies altogether. In 
any case, such a comparison as that under notice is futile 
for this reason : that Dickens was not a Johnson. He was a 
great man, but of a totally different type. Forster tells 
us that Dickens had no conversation. A recent critic has 
suggested that that was a "get out," if I may be permitted 
the colloquialism. It was nothing of the kind. It is per- 
fectly true that Dickens had no conversation in the real 
sense. Many who knew him have written about him, and 
they all tell us that he was the life and soul of any com- 
pany he was in ; but I have never yet come across a sugges- 
tion that he shone in conversation. He was too restless to 
do that, and — he was lacking in education. Splendid letter- 
writer he certainly was ; but the qualities that make a good 
letter-writer do not necessarily make a good conversation- 
alist. By contrast, Johnson's letters are rarely of any 
special value. 

Forster has been criticised for not having given us more 
facts than he did. There is very little in the criticism. If 



408 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

we bear in mind how near to Dickens's life he was writing 
we must surely admit that he omitted very little that he 
might have included. True, he did not mention all the 
houses in which his friend lived or stayed, but is that a 
normal duty of a biographer? Surely his duty is, in the 
main, to deal only with facts that affect the trend of his 
subject's life, or help to shape his character? To record 
that Dickens once stayed at Hyde Park Place, for instance, 
or to indicate every particular house in which he lived, is 
the legitimate business of a Robert Allbut or an F. G. 
Kitton, but not of a Forster. Such, at any rate, is my 
submission. I do not think that an instance can be pointed 
to of Forster having omitted a vital or essential fact. Some 
say that he should have told us more about Dickens's domes- 
tic trouble. Admitting that it is our business, it again has 
to be borne in mind that Forster wrote within a very few 
years of Dickens's death, when Mrs. Dickens and most of 
her children were still alive. Of course, here arises the old 
difficulty. It has been said that the friend, writing too soon 
after a man's death, cannot deal frankly and fully with the 
facts that he knows, whilst, later on, there is no one who 
has first-hand knowledge of the facts or knew the man. On 
which argument, no biography should ever be written.. But 
the difficulty is a real one, and it must have handicapped 
Forster considerably. He erred on the right side — on the 
side of caution. Nevertheless, there were incidents in 
Dickens's life, illuminative incidents, that might well have 
been recorded more fully. The story of the quarrel with 
Thackeray, for instance, might have been told without 
offence to any one. The story of Dickens's interest in the 
Italian Refugees of 1849 might have been, ought to have 
been told. It is simply referred to. Herein lies one of 
Forster's greatest faults. He assumes more knowledge in 
his reader than he has any justification for assuming; he 
writes more for his own circle than for the man in the street. 
If he mentions a dinner to Macready, he speaks of it as 
though he were simply recalling for the pleasure of a few 
friends a happy event in which they and he took part. So 
does he speak of great men with whom Dickens was 
acquainted as though all his readers knew them as well as 
he did. 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 409 

But the most common criticism of Forster is that which 
Mrs. Lynn Linton expressed, namely, that he glorified him- 
self at the expense of Dickens's other friends. It is certain 
that some of Dickens's friends were offended by Forster's 
treatment of them — Shirley Brooks records that Wilkie 
Collins and G. H. Lewes described the book to him as "The 
Life of John Forster, with notices of Dickens" — and in one 
or two cases it cannot be denied that they had cause for 
feeling hurt, but I cannot see any justice in the criticism 
of the principle upon which he worked. It seems to me 
that he was bound to reason somewhat like this : "Dickens 
was a very exceptional man, particularly in regard to the 
number of his friendships. I might appeal to them for ma- 
terial. I should be swamped — overwhelmed. My task would 
become herculean. My health is bad; I am nearing the end 
of my life; it is even doubtful if I shall live to complete 
this new task. But I knew Dickens more intimately and 
over a longer period than anybody else; I loved him prob- 
ably better than anybody else, and certainly better than I 
ever loved any other man. He wrote to me more frequently, 
more fully, and more intimately than to anybody else. 
From the days when he first become an author, right down 
to the very end, there was nothing in his life in respect of 
which I was not his confidant ; he had no interest in which 
I was not associated with him. I saw him in the company 
of all his other friends ; I saw him in every circumstance 
and in every mood. After all, who is there that could 
amplify my knowledge of him, or usefully extend the material 
that I have in my possession now?" 

What objection can there be to such a point of view? 
We are told that Forster refused to make use of letters 
addressed by Dickens to other friends, and that in doing so 
he was actuated by jealousy. As a general charge it is 
sheer nonsense. Wilkie Collins uttered the indictment, and 
possibly he had some personal grounds for it, but it was not 
true in a general sense, and no one who knows Forster 
would utter it now. The man had too big a mind and too 
big a heart. And when it comes to the point, would these 
letters have helped him to any material extent? Dickens's 
letters to Wilkie Collins have been published. Do they 
supply any vital deficiencies in Forster's book? A repre- 



410 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

sentative selection of letters addressed to other friends has 
been published. How far do they supply deficiencies? There 
may be one or two that help to illumine Dickens's character 
for us, but read the letters that Forster quotes, and say to 
what extent Forster's book, as a biography, would have 
been improved if he had had this mass of additional ma- 
terial in his hands. His task, already a heavy one, really 
a burden borne for the sake of the love he had had for his 
friend, would have been enormously increased to very little 
effect. 

I see no point in the suggestion that Forster should haw 
made plentiful use of other people's impressions of Dickens. 
That is not how biography is written — except, of course, 
when the biographer is writing of a man he never saw. Apart 
from the fact that such material would have beeen sufficient 
for a big volume in itself, it must be remembered that 
Forster was seeking solely to give the material facts in 
Dickens's life, and to reveal his friend's personality as he 
knew it. Was it not his proper aim, and did he fail in his 
purpose ? 

The argument that Forster did not go sufficiently into 
detail is not a weighty one. The Dickensian keen on topog- 
raphy grumbles when he cannot find in Forster information 
as to the exact identity and location of the home of this 
character or that; another complains that the author does 
not record the identity of the prototype of this character 
or that; another is cross because Forster does not record 
that Mrs. Dickens was "a large woman, with a great deal 
of colour, and rather coarse." Forster did not know that 
he was writing for the modern Dickensian ; he did not know 
that all these details would be sought after some day; but 
even if he could have foreseen all this, he could not have 
included these minute — and comparatively trivial — details 
in his book. Indeed, we must be careful what we ask of a 
biographer. Is he to be expected to record the full postal 
address of every house in which his subject ever dined? 
To ask that — and some Dickensians do seem to ask for it — 
is to reveal a misconception of the scope and purpose of 
biography. That purpose — the main purpose, at any rate 
— is to reveal character, and after we have read all that 
Dickens's friends have to say about him, can it be fairly 
suggested that Forster's book does not fulfil that purpose? 



THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL 411 

Boswell, of course, uses a different method of revealing 
his subject's character, but it is absurd to quote him against 
Forster in particular. He might be quoted with exactly the 
same amount of force against ever}' other biographer in any 
language whatsoever. Remember, too, that Boswell's 
method would be impossible with nine hundred and ninety- 
nine biographers out of any thousand. Compare him with 
Forster for a moment. He knew Johnson for twenty years ; 
Forster knew Dickens for thirty-four years. Boswell saw 
his friend twice a year at the most; Forster saw his almost 
every day. Only rarely did letters pass between Boswell 
and Johnson; between Forster and Dickens not a week 
passed but there was an exchange of letters. With these 
facts in mind, how ridiculous it is to criticise Forster for 
not being a Boswell! 

In very truth Forster had a difficult task. He had the 
choice of two stools, as it were, and he surely is to be con- 
gratulated upon the fact that he avoided the fate that is 
proverbially said to befall the person placed in such a pre- 
dicament. He choose one of the stools, planted himself 
firmly upon it, and he sits there immovable for all time. 

And now let us consider the charge that Forster was 
unjust or unfair to others of Dickens's friends. He did, I 
think, in just one or two cases, allow his personal feelings 
to govern him. It is difficult to doubt that he was jealous 
of one or two of the friends of later years. He was always 
jealous of any one who came very close to his friend. Now, 
the friend of later years for whom Dickens had most regard 
was Wilkie Collins. There is no doubt about the closeness 
of his friendship with the younger novelist. It puzzles me, 
it has puzzled many others, but it was a fact. Just note 
how Collins was associated with Dickens in everything dur- 
ing the latter half of the latter's literary career. Need we 
be surprised if Forster feared sometimes that he was in 
danger of being supplanted? I think there can be no doubt 
but that he did. In addition to — probably partly because 
of, that fact, Forster had no great liking for Collins. I 
have already quoted James Payn on the difficulty one some- 
times experiences in feeling a friendship towards one's 
friend's friend. In respect of Wilkie Collins, Mr. Renton 
makes exactly that point. He says that Collins was not to 
Forster what Forster was to Dickens (which hardly needed 



412 THE DICKENS CIRCLE 

saying) , and he adds : "My friend whom I introduce to you 
is, by virtue of that introduction, your friend also, but 
not as I am your friend, or you mine." Of course it is true ; 
and though Forster was friendly enough with Collins, it 
was only because Collins was his friend's friend. He had 
no particular regard for the man, and because of Dickens's 
strange regard for him, was also rather jealous of him. 
And the result was that when he came to write Dickens's 
life he did not treat Collins fairly. There are nineteen 
references to Collins in the book (according to the best 
index that we possess). Three of those references are to 
the appearance of serial stories in All the Year Round, 
most of the others are to Collins accompanying Dickens on 
journeys, and the remainder are to theatrical matters. 
There is not a reference of an intimate character, except 
the first, which, speaking of Collins's appearance in Used 
Up in 1852, says that he "became, for all of the rest of 
the life of Dickens, one of his dearest and most Valued 
friends" — surely a curt dismissal of a friend who influenced 
Dickens's literary work as no one else ever did ! Collins had 
reason for feeling aggrieved. He was entitled to better 
treatment. 

Collins's is the most glaring case, but it does not stand 
alone. It is quite easy, in reading Forster's books, to tell 
which of Dickens's friends he liked and which he did not 
like. We know he liked Maclise and Stanfield and Lemon, 
for instance. We know he "was not so keen on" certain 
others. But, after all, the offence is not rank. Forster was 
the friend of Dickens. He loved the novelist with a love 
rarely found to exist between men. With that love there 
went, hand in hand, a real jealousy. Further, he had no 
particular regard for some of his friend's friends ; and he 
was human. Recognise these facts, and recognise — as I 
think we must — the soundness of the plan upon which he 
worked, and there is very little substantial ground for com- 
plaint. Consider fairly all the criticisms of his book that 
have been offered, and admit that in some of them there 
is a grain of truth, but when all is said and done we are 
forced to agree that Forster's Life of Dickens is a noble 
tribute to, and memorial of, a great and rare friendship 
which will last for all time. 



INDEX 



h Beckett, Gilbert, dramatises The 
Chimes, 298; his friendship with 
Dickens, 298 

"After Dark," 336 

Agassiz, Jean, 231 

Ainger, Canon, 297, 298, 383 

Ainsworth, William Harrison, 44, 49, 
65, 71, 89, 153, 156, 222, 302, 321; 
daughters of, visited by Dickens, 
15; godfather to Henry Fielding 
Dickens, 18; his friendship with 
Dickens, 11-19; his influence on 
Dickens's work, 15 

Albaro, 133, 308, 

Albion, the. See Nicholas Nickleby, 
dinner to celebrate completion of. 

Alison, Sir Archibald, 133 

All the Year Round, 31, 64, 116, 137, 
143, 145, 169, 170, 171, 197, 198, 
218, 223, 260, 298, 305, 320, 336, 
337, 338, 339. See also Editor, Dick- 
ens as an. 

Allan, Sir William, R.A., 133 

Allchin, Arthur, 43, 44, 45 

America, Dickens's first visit to, 3, 33, 
162,225,235; Dickens's second visit 
to, 217, 225, 230, 238-241, 384; 
Macready's visit to, 34. See Copy- 
right, International. 

American friends, Dickens's, 225-241. 

American Notes, 113, 225; Captain 
Marryat's appreciation of, 162; 
Lord Jeffrey's opinion of, 122; Lord 
Macaulay's opinion of, 315; Marcua 
Stone's illustrations for Library 
Edition of, 178 

Andersen, Hans Christian, 194; dedi- 
cates a book to Dickens, 387; hia 
friendship with Dickens, 385-389 

"Animal Magnetism," 254, 274 

Apprentices, Two Idle, The Lazy Tout 
of, 326 

"Armadale," 337 



Ashley, Lord. See Shaftesbury, Earl of. 
Athenaeum Club, the, 95 
"Athenaeum, The," 333 

Ballantine, Serjeant, 49, 181 

Baltimore, 228 

Bancroft, George, 237 

Bardell v. Pickwick, 190 

Barham, Rev. R. H., 136, 153 

Barnaby Rudge, 142, 325; F. W. Top- 
ham's drawings from, 294; George 
Cattermole's illustrations for, 77. 
See Varden, Dolly. 

Barrow, Mr., 165 

Bath, 203; Dickens's visits to Landor 
at, 55, 56, 58, 68, 368; memorial 
tablets at, to Dickens and Landor, 54 

Battle of Life, The, Albert Smith's 
dramatisation of, 301, 383; dedi- 
cated to English friends in Switzer- 
land, 257; Leech's illustrations for, 
272; Maclise's illustrations for, 72; 
Stanfield's illustrations for, 112 

Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli, 
Benjamin. 

Beard, Frank, 339 

Beard, Thomas, 9 

Beaufort, Duke of, 61 

Beaver, Hugh, 15, 16 

Belgians, King of the, 247 

Bell, Robert, 298 

Belvedere, 70 

Bentley, Richard, 142, 223 

"Bentley's Miscellany," 16, 18, 21, 
223, 296, 342 

Berger, Francesco, 298, 299 

Bethnal Green. <See Nova Scotia Gar- 
dens. 

Birmingham, 120 

Black, Adam, 133 

Black, John, 4, 9 

Blanchard, Laman, 3, 31, 165; hia 
friendship with Dickens, 213-215 



413 



414 



INDEX 



Bleak House, presentation copy of, 
to Mrs. Cowden Clarke, 289. See 
Boythorn, Lawrence; also Chesney 
Wold; also Jo, Poor; also Skimpole, 
Harold. 

Blessington, Countess of, her friend- 
ship with Dickens, 183-188 

"Blot on the 'Scutcheon," 39 

Blunderstone, 276, 281 

Bonchurch, 172, 275, 281, 284, 304 

Boston, 231, 233, 230, 269 

Boulogne, 102, 276, 324, 339 

Boyle, Mary, 219, 252, 253 note; her 
friendship with Dickens, 262-266 

Boythorn, Lawrence, W. S. Landor 
the original of, 56, 59 

Boz Club, the, 174, 354 

Bradbury and Evans, 223 

Bray, Madeline, Frank Stone's picture 
of, 174 

Bray, Richard, 6 

Brighton, 275, 303 

Bristol, 203, 231 

"Britannia," the steamship, Stan- 
field's picture of, 113 

Broadstairs, 167, 172, 284, 316, 339, 387 

Brookfield, Rev. William and Mrs., 259 

Brooks, Shirley, 296 

"Brother, The Elder," 35, 277 

Brough, Lionel, 297 

Brough, Robert, 297 

Brougham, Lord, 181 

Brown, Dr. John, 396, 39S 

Browne, Dr. Edgar, 44 note 

Browne, Hablot Knight, 15, 177, 396; 
his friendship with Dickens, 42-47 

Browning, Robert, 12, 27, 394; his 
friendship with Dickens, 39-41 

Brunei, Isambard, 322 

Brussels, 101 

Bryant, William Cullen, 237 

Buffalo, 223 

Buller, Charles, 138 

Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, 343, 389; 
her friendship with Dickens, 192- 
194; Martin Chuzzlewit dedicated to, 
193 

Burdett, Sir Francis, 192 

Buss, R. W., 42 

Cairo, 226 

Campbell, Lord, 178, 181 

Carlisle, Lord, 316 

Carlyle, Thomas, 3, 145, 185, 308, 395; 

his friendship with Dickens, 205-209 ; 

his influence on Dickens's work, 206 



Carol, A Christmas, 34, 50, 99; Leech's 
illustrations for, 271, 272; Lord 
Jeffrey's eulogy of, 123; Presenta- 
tion Copy of, to Thackeray, 89; 
Presentation Copy of, to Laman 
Blanchard, 214; Samuel Rogers falls 
asleep over, 148; Thackeray's 
eulogy of, 84 

Carrara, 133 

Carrick Fell, 337 

Cattermole, George, 3, 70, 153, 165; 
his friendship with Dickens, 75-79; 
his illustrations for Master Hum- 
phrey's Clock, 76 

Cattermole, Mrs., 76 

Channing, William Henry, 237 

Chapman and Hall, 14, 20, 67, 221, 222 

Chapman, Edward, 222 

Chapman, Frederic, 222 

Chapman, Thomas, 320 

Chatham, 68 

Cheeryble Brothers, the. See Grant, 
the Brothers. 

Cheltenham, 37 

"Cherry and Fair Star," 7 

Chesney Wold, 254 

Chesterton, Mr., 139 

Childs, George William, 237 

Chimes, The, Carlyle's influence on, 
206; Dickens reads it to Macready, 
35; Dickens's reading of it at 
Forster's house, 72, 100, 135, 206, 
213, 249J269; dramatised by Mark 
Lemon and Gilbert a Beckett, 298; 
Jeffrey's eulogy of, 123; Leech's 
illustrations for, 272; Maclise's illus- 
trations for, 71 ; Stanfield's illustra- 
tions for, 112. See Cute, Alderman. 

"Chivalry, The Spirit of," 72 

Chorley, Henry Fothergill, 141, 149, 
184, 210; his friendship with Dick- 
ens, 331-333 

Clarke, Mrs. Cowden, 283; her friend- 
ship with Dickens, 287-290 

Clay, Henry, 237 

Cobham, 68 

Cockburn, Lord, 119, 181 

Colden, David, 237 

Collier, John Payne, 167 

Collins, Charles Allston, 10, 328,339,' 
356 | 

Collins, Mrs. C. A. See Dickena, Kate 
Macready. \ 

Collins, William Wilkie, 92, 102, 113, 
280, 285, 303, 320, 372, 409, 411, 412; 
his friendship with Dickens, 334-340;. 



INDEX 



415 



his influence on Dickens's work, 
334 
Colquhoun, J. C, 133 
Columbia Square Buildings, Bethnal 

Green, 193 
Copyright, International, 162, 181, 203 
Copyright, Talfourd's work for, 48 
"Cornhill Magazine, The," 81, 96 
Cornwall, Barry. See Proctor, B. W. 
Cornwall, trip to, by Dickens and 
Wilkie Collins, 338; trip to, by 
Dickens, Stanfield, Forster and 
Maclise, 68, 89, 110, 398 
Costello, Dudley, 113, 294 
Coutts, Miss. See Burdett-Coutts, 

Baroness. 
Crawford, Sir George, 317 
Crewe, Marquis of, ix, 242, 247 
Cricket on the Hearth, The, 28; dedi- 
cated to Lord Jeffrey, 121; drama- 
tised by Albert Smith, 301, 383; 
Landseer's illustration for, 108j 
Maclise's illustrations for, 72; Stan- 
field's illustrations for, 112 
Crossley, James, 14, 17, 18 
Cruikshank, George, 11, 153, 325; 
his claim to the origination of Oliver 
Twist, 21-25; his friendship with 
Dickens, 20-26; his illustrations for 
Life of Grimaldi, 25 ; his illustrations 
for Mudfog Papers, 25; his illustra- 
tions for Oliver Twist, 21; his illus- 
trations for Public Life of Mr. Tul- 
rumble, 25; his illustrations for 
Sketches by Boz, 20; his portrait of 
Dickens, 21 
Cumberland, 337 
Cunningham, Peter, 167, 294, 295 
Cute, Alderman, the original of, 182 

V Daily News, The," 102, 103, 1S7, 248, 
1 342, 374 

;* Daily Telegraph, The," 361, 364, 
367 

Dana, Richard Henry, 239 

Danson, Henry, 6, 7 

Darnley, Earl of, 113 

Dasent, A. I., 313 

.David Copperfield, 56; dedicated to the 
Hon. R. and Mrs. Watson, 254: 
dinner to celebrate publication of 
first number of, 89, 219, 308, 375; 
Carlyle's appreciation of, 207; Jef- 
frey's opinion of, 125; Thackeray's 
praise of, 84. See Blunderstone ; also 
Tradles, Tommy; also Yarmouth. 



"Dead Secret, The," 336 

"Deaf as a Post," 269 

de Cerjat, M., 258 

Delane, John T., 313 

Denman, Lord, 180, 181 

Denmark, Queen Dowager of, 389 

Devonshire, Duke of, 291-292 

Devonshire House, theatrical per- 
formance at, 215, 279, 291, 296, 335 

Devonshire, trip to, by Dickens and 
Wilkie Collins, 338 

Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, 188 

Dickens, Augustus, 320 

Dickens, Charles, as an editor, 341, 
359, 360, 377, 379; as a newspaper 
reporter, 8; candidate for Lord 
Rectorship of Glasgow University, 
217; drawing of his children by 
Maclise, 71 ; his capacity for friend- 
ship, vii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 76, 332; his ad- 
vocacy of liberal education, 168; his 
anti-Catholic bias, 379; his early 
enthusiasm for the Stage, 7; his 
later enthusiasm for the Stage, 268 ; 
and see under Theatricals; his 
estrangement from his wife, 282, 
313; his loyalty to the profession of 
Literature, 201, 211, 245; his per- 
sonality, vii, 176, 182, 263, 288, 316, 
320; his work for Social Reform, 
193, 195, 190, 197, 199, 318; said to 
have acted in The Strange Gentleman, 
302; writes stories in boyhood, 7 

Dickens, Charles, portrait of, by George 
Cruikshank, 21; by Augustus Egg, 
R.A., 284; by W. P. Frith, R.A., 
326; by John Leech, 276; by C. R. 
Leslie, R.A., 324; by Daniel Maclise, 
R.A., 67, 141 ; by J. E. Millais, R.A., 
328; by E. M. Ward, R. A., 324 

Dickens, Charles Cullingford Boz, 192, 
224, 360 

Dickens, Dora, 286 

Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lyttoni 
333 

Dickens, Francis Jeffrey, 121 

Dickens, Henry Fielding, K.C., 18, 
279 note 

Dickens, Kate Macready, ix, 10, 32, 
74, 89, 215, 277, 280, 328, 356 
Marcus Stone's portrait of, 177 

Dickens, Mary, 114,275, 278, 2S0, 333, 
406 

Dickens, Mrs. Charles, 55, 70, 71; 
Maclise's portrait of, 70 

Dickens, Sydney Smith Haldimand. 



416 



INDEX 



138, 25S; Frank Stone's portrait of, 
172 

Dickens, WalterSavageLandor,58, 193 

Dickens Fellowship, the, viii, 354 

Dickensian, The, viii, 51 note, 132 note, 
271 note, 276, 372 note 

Dilke, Wentworth, 10 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 185, 198 

"Doctor's Mixture," 354 

Dodger, the Artful, 50 

Dolby, George, 37, 38, 231, 240; his 
friendship with Dickens, 384 

Dolby, Miss, 301 

Dombey and Son, 28, 101, 102; Chris- 
tening Dinner, 15, 278 ; dedicated to 
Marchioness of Normanby, 114; 
Rev. William Brookfield's opinion 
of, 259; Lord Denman's apprecia- 
tion of, 180; Lord Jeffrey's opinion 
of, 118, 124, 125; Charles Kent's re- 
view of, 355; Lord Macaulay's opin- 
ion of, 314; Daniel Maclise's opinion 
of, 72. See Feenix, Cousin. 

Dombey, Mr., the falsely reputed 
original of, 320 

D'Orsay, Count, his friendship with 
Dickens, 183-138 

Dotheboys Hall, 44 

"Down at the Red Grange," 351 

Dublin, 352 

Dufferin, Lady, 189 

Dumas, Alexander, 323 

Eastlake, Sir Charles, R.A., 328 
Edgeworth, Maria, 180 
Edinburgh, 119, 120, 130, 132, 372 
"Edinburgh Review, The," 314 
Editor, Dickens as an, 341, 359, 360, 

377, 379 
Edwin Drood, The Mystery of, 241, 328, 
334; Dickens offers to reveal plot of , 
to Queen Victoria, 319; Sir Luke 
Fildes's illustrations for, 329 
Egg, Augustus, R. A., 114, 280, 335, 339 ; 
designs the dresses for " Not so Bad 
as we Seem," 284; his friendship 
with Dickens, 283-286. 
Elliot, Mrs., 152 
Elliotson, Dr. John, 70, 153, 182; his 

friendship with Dickens, 134 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 237 
"Enchanted Doll, The," 273 
England, A Child's History of, Marcus 
Stone's illustrations for Library 
Edition of, 178; Presentation Copy 
of, to Marcus Stone, 175 



Evans, Mr. See Bradbury and Evans. 
"Every Man in His Humour," 35, 71, 

78, 104, 113, 156, 173, 189,215,269, 
273, 278, 284, 288, 294, 298 

"Examiner, The," 24, 28, 146, 152, 

272, 358, 394 
Exeter, 203 

Factory Question, the, Dickens and, 196 

Fagin, Bob, 6 

Fairy Tales, Dickens's defence of, 24 

Fang, Mr., the original of, 182 

"Fatal Zero," 354 

Faucit, Helen, 301 

Fechter, Charles Albert, 2, 177, 302; 
his friendship with Dickens, 390-392 

Feenix, Cousin, the reputed original of, 
311 

Felton, Prof. C. C, 3, 68, 72, 110, 227, 
230; his friendship with Dickens, 
233-235 

Fields, Mr. and Mrs. James T., their 
friendship with Dickens, 238-241 

Fiesole, 64 

Fildes, Sir Luke, R.A., his drawing of 
Dickens's grave, 330; his friendship 
with Dickens, 329; his illustrations 
for Edwin Drood, 328, 329; his 
painting of " The Empty Chair,"330 

Fitzgerald, Edward, 196 

Fitzgerald, Percy, vii, 12, 81, 107, 141, 
189, 190, 209, 223, 262, 318, 335, 341, 
358, 364, 366, 372, 376, 394, 396, 
399; his friendship with Dickens, 
350-354 

Fitzgerald, S. J. Adair, 270 

Fitzpatrick, W. J., 136 

Flanders, 101 

Fletcher, Angus, his friendship with 
Dickens, 133 

Florence, 63 

Flower, Miss Eliza, 249 

Follett, Sir W., 190, 191 

Fonblanque, Albany, 135 > 

Ford, Mr., 145 

Ford, Mrs., 317 

Forster, John, 3, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 
27, 29, 35, 39, 44, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 
63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 

79, 98, 100, 102, 107, 110, 111, 115, 
135, 152, 156, 163, 185, 187, 208, 
209, 211, 212, 220, 249, 276, 281, 
282, 283, 302, 313, 323, 335, 341, 
343, 351 , 358, 359, 390, 391 ; dedicates 
his "Life of Goldsmith" to Dick- 
ens, 405; first learns of Dickens's 



INDEX 



417 



existence, 135; godfather to Mary 
Dickens, 406; his capacity for 
friendship, 394; his friendship with 
Dickens, 393-412; his "Life of 
Charles Dickens," vii, 405-412; 
his "Life of Walter Savage Landor" 
reviewed by Dickens, 64, 368, 403; 
his personality, 393-399 

"Fortunio," 279, 297, 335 

Fox, W. J., his friendship with Dick- 
ens, 248-249 

Fraser, W. A., 271 

"Friends in Council," 218 

Frith, W. P..R. A., 107, 286; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 325; his illustra- 
tion for Library Edition of Little 
Dorrit, 326 ; Ins portrait of Dickens, 
326 

" Frozen Deep.The," 106, 1 15, 285, 292, 
297, 299, 306, 336, 344, 389; Fran- 
cesco Berger's music for, 299; MS. 
of, sold by auction, 336; Clarkson 
Stanfield's drop scene for, 115 

"Gad's Hill Gazette, The," 176, 333, 
356, 391 

Gad's Hill House, Marcus Stone's pic- 
ture of, 177; the purchase of,369, 370 

Garrick Club, the, 92, 94, 349 

Gaskell, Mrs., her friendship with 
Dickens, 375 

Genoa, 100, 192 

"Gentleman Cadet," 371 

Gentleman, The Strange, 362; Dickens 
offers it to Macready, 29; J. P. 
Harley appears in, 302 

Gibson, Thomas Milner, 319 

Gillies, Lord, 133 

Gladstone, William Ewart, 199 

Glasgow, 120 

Glasgow Athenaeum, 120 

Glasgow University, Dickens a candi- 
date for the Lord Rectorship of, 219 

"Glencoe," 53 

"Gordian Knot, The," 296 

Gordon, Joseph, 133 

Gordon, Mrs., 144 

Gore House, 183-188, 273 

Graham, Lady, 189 

Grant, the Brothers, Dickens's meet- 
ing with, 15, 44 

Great Expectations, dedicated to Chaun- 
cey Hare Townshend, 311; Car- 
lyle's appreciation of, 208; Lytton's 
influence on, 218; MS. of, pre- 
sented to Chauncey Hare Town- 



shend, 311; Marcus Stone's illustra- 
tions for Library Edition of, 178 

Green, Poll, 6 

Greenwich, dinner at, to John Black, 
9, 138; dinner at, to welcome 
Dickens home from America, 18, 25, 
50, 68, 110, 135, 152, 162, 169, 242 

Grego, Joseph, 272 

Grimaldi, Life of, Cruikshank's illus- 
trations for, 25 

Grove, Sir George, 320 

"Guy Fawkes," 297,383 

Haldimand, William, 257 

Hall, Mrs. S. C, 183, 322 

Hall, Samuel Carter, 149, 156, 321 

Hall, Williain, 221 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 237 

Hallam, Henry, 258 

Halliday, Andrew, 367 

Hampstead, 111. And see Jack Straw's 
Castle. 

Handel Festival, the first, 389 

"Hard Cash," 320 

Hard Times, 198; Carlyle's influence 
on, 206 

Harley, John P., 155, 302 

Harness, Rev. William, his friendship 
with Dickens, 249 

"Harper's Magazine," 95 

Harwick, John, 322 

Haunted House, The, 338 

Haunted Man, The, Christening Din- 
ner, 10, 278, 297; dramatised by Mark 
Lemon, 278; John Leech's illustra- 
tions for, 273; Clarkson Stanfield's 
illustrations for, 112; Frank Stone's 
illustrations for, 173; Sir John 
Tenniel's illustrations for, 296 

Headlands, Mr., 384 

"Heart, A Dead," 46 

Helps, Sir Arthur, 307, 320; his 
friendship with Dickens, 318 

Herculanaeum, 306 

Hewlett, Henry G., 332 

Higgins, Matthew, 317 

Hill, Mr. (Editor of "The Daily 
News"), 40 

Hodder, Edwin, 196 

Hogarth, Georgiana, 37, 69, 71, 183, 
285, 405 

Hollingshead, John, 341 

Holly Tree Inn, The, 338 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 231, 236, 239 

Hood, Thomas, 211, 213; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 151-154 



418 



INDEX 



Hood, Thomas, Threatening Letter to, 154 

"Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscel- 
lany," 154 

Hook and Eye Club, the, 21 

Home, Richard Hengist, 374 

Houghton, Lady, 246 

Houghton, Lord. See Milnes, Richard 
Monckton. 

House to Let, A, 338 

Household Words, 24, 38, 49, 52, 143, 
160, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 185, 191, 
197, 198, 223, 282, 298, 305, 313, 327, 
336, 337, 338. See also Editor, 
Dickens as an. 

Household Words Almanac, The, 360] - 

Hughes, Master Hastings, 136 

Hugo, Victor, 323 

Hullah, John, 303 

Hunt, Holman, 328 

Hunt, Leigh, vii, 3, 213, 287, 302, 315; 
his friendship with Dickens, 155- 
160; theatrical performances in aid 
of , 51, 7S, 104, 156, 201, 269, 273, 283 

"Idylls of the King, The," 219 
Ingoldsby, Thomas. See Barham, 

R. H. 
"Ion," 48 

Irving, Washington, 3, 324; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 225-229 
7s She His Wife? 302 
Isle of Wight. See Bonchurch; also 

White, Rev. James. 
Italian Refugees, Dickens's appeal for, 

322 
Italy, Pictures from, Count D'Orsay 

influences the publication of, 18S; 

Marcus Stone's illustrations for 

Library Edition of, 178 

Jack Straw's Castle, 111, 155 

Jeaffreson, James Cordy, 81, 82, 85 

Jeffrey, Lord, vii, 3 ; his friendship with 
Dickens, 118-129 

Jordan, William, 147, 152, 153, 387; 
his friendship with Dickens, 140-143 

Jerrold, Blanchard, 97, 103, 356 

Jerrold, Douglas, 3, 110, 167, 271, 277, 
296, 297, 299, 381, 396; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 97-106 

"Jerrold's, Douglas, Shilling Maga- 
zine," 72 

Jo, Poor, Marcus Stone's drawing of, 
175 

Jodrell, Sir E. R., 67 

Jones, Southwood, 138 



"Journey Due North; A," 364 
Jowett, Prof., 211 

Keeley, Mr. and Mrs., 301 

Kemble, Charles, 268, 301 

Kensal Lodge, 14 

Kensal Manor House, 14 

Kent, Charles, vii, 19, 341 ; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 355-357 

"Key of the Street, The," 363 

King Edward VII. See Wales, Prince 
of. 

Kitton, F. G., 254, 369, 370 

Knebworth, 215, 216, 274, 278, 284, 
319, 346, 353 

Knight, Charles, 3; 252, 341; his 
friendship with Dickens, 165-168 

Knowles, Sheridan James, theatrical 
performances in aid of, 105, 120, 213, 
299 

Laing, Mr., 182 

Lamartine, Alphonse, 323 

Lamplighter's Story, The, Cruikshank's 
illustration for, 25; offered to Mac- 
ready, 29 

Landor, Walter Savage, vii, 3, 65, 185^ 
321, 368; his friendship with Dick- 
ens, 54-64 

Landseer, Charles, 3, 108, 153 

Landseer, Sir Edwin, R. A.,71, 107, 163 

Landseer, Thomas, 3, 108, 153 

Lang, Andrew, 329 

Lankester, Dr., 281 

Lanman, Charles, 238 

Laurie, Sir Peter, 182 

Lausanne, 18, 51, 134, 252, 258, 307 

Layard, George Somes, 297, 317 

Layard, Sir Austen, 198 

Leech, John, 281, 295; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 271-276; his por- 
trait of Dickens, 276 

Lehmann, Frederick, 266, 331, 345 

Lehmann, R. C, 345, 369 

Leigh, Percival, 298 

Lemon, Mark, 114, 116, 215, 274, 275, 
276, 296, 313, 363; dramatises The 
Chimes, 298 ; dramatises TheHaunted 
Man, 278; his friendship with 
Dickens, 277-282 

Lennox, Lord William, 82 

Leslie, Charles Robert, R.A., 324 

L'Estrange, Rev. A. G., 250, 251 

Lever, Charles, 136, 137 

Lewes, George Henry, 293, 294, 409 

Lichfield, 68 



INDEX 



419 



"Lighthouse, The," 113, 178, 181, 280, 
285, 299, 236; Francesco Berger's 
music for, 299; Clarkson Stanfield's 
scene for, 113 

Linton, Mrs. Lynn, 56, 145, 341, 403; 
her friendship with Dickens, 368-370 

Linton, W. J., 272 

Literary Fund, the, 10, 215 

"Literary Gazette, The," 143 

Literature and Art, the Guild of, 213- 
217, 324, 343, 353. See also under 
Theatrical performances. 

Little Dorrit, Hans Christian Ander- 
sen's appreciation of, 388; dedi- 
cated to Clarkson Stanfield, 113; 
Duke of Devonshire's appreciation 
of, 291; W. D. Frith's illustration 
for Library Edition of, 326; Marcus 
Stone's frontispiece to First Cheap 
Edition of, 178 

Liverpool, banquet at, to Dickens, 
217, 245 

"Lizzie Leigh," 375 

Llanthony, 61 

Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 237, 316 

Lockhart, John Gibson, 144, 368 

Logan Stone, the, Clarkson Stanfield's 
drawing of, 110 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 3; hia 
friendship with Dickens, 230-232 

Longman, Thomas, 224 

Longman, William, 137 

"Love, Law, and Physick," 120, 284, 
288, 294 

Lovelace, Lord and Lady, 317 

Lover, Samuel, 92 

Lowell, James Russell, 231, 236 

Lowestoft, 276 

Lyttleton, Hon. Spencer, 276 

Lytton, Lord, 82, 164, 173, 198, 284, 
311, 397; his friendship with Dick- 
ens, 210-218 

Lytton, Robert, 211, 218 

Macaulay, Lord, 314 

Mackay, Charles, 8 

Mackenzie, Shelton, 21 

Maclise, Daniel, R. A.,vii, 3, 18, 19,55,' 
77, 98, 101, 102, 107, 111, 113, 163, 
165, 185, 220, 272 ; his "Apotheosis of 
the Raven," 71; his drawing of 1 
Devonshire Terrace, 71 ; his drawing 
of Dickens'schildren,71 ; his drawing 
of Dickens, Mrs. Dickens, and Miss 
Hogarth, 71 ; his drawing of Dickens 
as Captain Bobadil, and Forster as 



Kiteley, 71; his drawing of Dick- 
ens's reading of The Chimes, 71; hia 
friendship with Dickens, 65-74; his 
illustrations to The Battle of Life, 72; 
his illustrations to The Chimes, 72; 
his illustrations to The Cricket on the 
Hearth, 72; his illustration for The 
Old Curiosity Shop, 72; his portrait 
of Dickens, 67, 141 ; his portrait of 
Mrs. Dickens, 70 

Macready, Henry, Dickens as god- 
father to, 32 

Macready, Kate, 38 

Macready, William Charles, 2, 3, 4, 41, 
44, 48, 49, 53, 65, 67, 70, 98, 104, 
108, 116, 142, 165, 184, 185, 211, 
217, 273, 277, 301, 302, 308, 314, 
396, 398, 400, 401; his friendship 
with Dickens, 27-38 

Macrone, 11, 17, 25, 222, 223 

Manchester, 51, 170, 196; Dickens 
visits, with Ainsworth, 15, 16; 
Dickens visits, with H. K. Browne, 44 

Manson, James A., 107 

Marryat, Captain, 153, 185; hia 
friendship with Dickens, 161-164 

Martin Chuzzlewit, dedicated to Miss 
Coutts, 193; dramatisation of, by 
Edward Stirling, 383; A. Fon- 
blanque'sappreciationof , 135 ; Frank 
Stone's frontispiece for First Cheap 
Edition of, 174. See Pecksniff, Mr. 

Martin, Sir Theodore, 95, 396 

Martineau, Harriet, 341; her associa- 
tion with Dickens, 377 

"Mary Barton," 375 

Marzials, Sir Frank, 383 

Master Humphrey's Clock, 44, 59, 6S, 
119, 302; Rev. William Brook- 
field's opinion of, 259; George 
Cattermole's illustrations for, 76; 
Thomas Hood's appreciation of, 
151 

Matz, B. W., vhi 

Mazzini, Guiseppe, 322 

McCarthy, Justin, 293, 321 

Melbourne, Lord, 189 

"Merry Wives of Windsor, The," 129, 
278, 287 

Mesmerism, Dickens's interest in, 134; 
Dickens saves John Leech's life by 
means of, 275 

Message from the Sea, A, 338 

Millais, John Everett, R.A., his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 326; his portrait 
of Dickens after death, 328; his 



420 



INDEX 



picture from The Old Curiosity Shop, 

328 ; 
"Miller, The, and His Men," 7, 372 
Miller, William, ix 
Milnes, Richard Monckton, 153; his 

friendship with Dickens, 242-247 
Miscellaneous Papers, 73, 146 note, 253 

note, 279, 303 
Molesworth, Lady, 317 
Montreal, 268 
"Moonstone, The," 337 
Moore, Thomas, 138 
Morley, Henry, 341, 395; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 358-360 
"Morning Chronicle, The," 9 
Morris, Mowbray, 322 
Motley, John Lothrop, 237 
"Mr. Nightingale's Diary," 173, 215, 

279, 284, 294, 335 
Mudfog Papers, The, George Cruik- 

shank's illustrations for, 25 
Mulgrave, Lord, his friendship with 

Dickens, 268-270 
Murray, Lord, 133 



Napier, Macvey, 133 

Naples, 306 

Nell, Little, "birthplace" of, at Bath, 
55; Lord Jeffrey's affection for, 119, 
122 ;W. S. Landor's affection for, 55; 
W. C. Macready's affection for, 33 

"Never Forgotten," 353 

New Lamps for Old Ones, 327 

" New Spirit of the Age, The," 374 

New York, 226, 233 

Nice, 186 

Nicholas Nickleby, 85; dedicated to 
W. C. Macready, 32; dinner to cele- 
brate completion of, 32, 44, 59, 67, 
110, 141,302; Mr. and Mrs. Keeley 
appear in pirated version of, 301; 
Mr. Yates' performance in, 348; 
Presentation Copy of, to J. P. Har- 
ley, 302; Sydney Smith's apprecia- 
tion of, 138. See Bray, Madeline; 
also Grant Brothers, the; also Price, 
'Tilda; also Smike. 

Nickleby, Kate, Frank Stone's picture 
of, 174 

"Night, A Fearful," 348 

"No Name," 337 

No Thoroughfare, Dickens and Wilkie 
Collins collaborate in dramatisation 
of, 335, 338; C. A. Fechter appears 
in, 302, 391 



Normanby, Marchioness of, Dombey 
and Son dedicated to, 134 

Normanby, Marquis of, 134 

"North and South," 376 note 

North, Christopher. See Wilson, John. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, 237 

Norton, Hon. Mrs., her friendship with 
Dickens, 189-191 

Norwich, 276, 282 

"Not so Bad as we Seem," 105, 113, 
168, 173, 215, 284, 294, 296, 298; Au- 
gustus Egg designs the dresses for, 
284 

Nova Scotia Gardens, Bethnal Green, 
193 

Nugent, Lord, 317 

"Nymph of the Waterfall, The," 
Daniel Maclise's painting, 69, 70 

Old Cheeseman, Lord Tennyson's 
opinion of, 220 

Old Curiosity Shop, The, dedicated to 
Samuel Rogers, 147; George Cat- 
termole's illustrations for, 77; Daniel 
Maclise's drawing for, 72; J. E. 
Millais's picture from, 328; Thomas 
Hood's appreciation of, 151; F. W. 
Topham's drawings from, 294. See 
Nell, Little. 

Oliffe, Sir Joseph, 308 

Oliver Twist, 142, 145, 192, 212; George 
Cruikshank's claim to have origi- 
nated, 21-25; George Cruikshank's 
illustrations for, 21; Dickens offers 
to dramatise, for Macready, 30; 
T. N. Talfourd's sonnet on, 51; 
Mr. Yates's performance in, 347. 
See Dodger, the Artful ; also Fang, Mr. 

"Once a Week," 47, 224, 369 

Orford, Lord, 318 

Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 41 

Osgood, James R., 231, 239, 241 

Our Mutual Friend, Robert Bell ap- 
pears in dramatic version of, 298; 
dedicated to Sir James Emerson Ten- 
nent, 306; H. F. Chorley's review of, 
333 ; Marcus Stone as illustrator of, 
47, 177, 178. -See Podsnap, Mr.; 
also Venus, Mr. 

Owen, Sir Richard, 309 

Paget, Lord Alfred, 313 

"Palm Leaves," 244 

Paris, 108, 135, 181, 188, 267,276, 308, 

317, 323, 324, 339 
Parkinson, J. C, 341, 373 



INDEX 



421 



Parliament, Members of, Dickens's 
poor opinion of, 48, 198, 245 

"Parliament, The Mirror of," 165 

Parry, John, 301 

"Past Two o'clock in the Morning,"269 

"Patrician's Daughter, The," 34, 40 

"Paul Clifford," 212 note 

Payn, James, 83, 156, 371, 399 

Pecksniff, Mr., S. C. Hall probably the 
original of, 321 

Pemberton, T. Edgar, 270 

Perils of Certain English Prisoners, The, 
338 

Perkins, Jane Gray, 189 

Perugini, Mrs. See Dickens, Kate 
Macready. 

Petersham, 67, 75, 302 

Phelps, Samuel, 301 

Phillips, Sir George, 138 

Phillips, Watts, 46 

Phiz. See Browne, Hablot Knight. 

Pickwick Papers, The, 11, 144; Bath 
scenes in, 203; Lord Campbell's 
appreciation of, 178, 181 ; Carlyle's 
opinion of, 207; dedicated to T. N. 
Talfourd, 48; Lord Denman's ap- 
preciation of, 180; dinner to cele- 
brate completion of, 14, 15, 30, 44, 
49, 140; Thomas Hood's apprecia- 
tion of, 152; William Jerdan's ap- 
preciation of, 140; John Leech, a 
would-be illustrator of, 272; J. G. 
Lockhart's opinion of, 144; Phiz's 
illustrations for, 42 ; Sydney Smith's 
failure to appreciate, 138; Tenny- 
son's opinion of, 220; Thackeray a 
would-be illustrator of, 89. See Bar- 
dell v. Pickwick; aZsoSoane, Sir John 

"Pic-nic Papers, The," 25 

"Pictorial Pickwickiana," 272 

Pisa, 306 

Planche, James Robinson, 297 

Plays: "A Dead Heart," ; 46 "Cherry 
and Fair Star," 7; "Glencoe," 53; 
"Ion," 48; "The Miller and His 
Men," 7, 372; "The Patrician's 
Daughter," 34, 40 
[Note. — For dramatic versions of 
Dickens's books, see under titles 
of books.] 

Plays in which Dickens acted: "A 
Roland for an Oliver," 229; "A 
School for Scandal" (scenes from), 
253; '"Animal Magnetism," 254, 
274, 280; "Deaf as a Post," 269; 
"Every Man in His Humour," 35, 



71, 78, 104, 113, 156, 173, 189, 
215, 269, 273, 278, 284, 288, 294, 
295, 298; "Fortunio," 279, 297, 
335; "Guy Fawkes," 297, 383; 
"Love, Law, and Physick," 120, 
284, 288, 294; "Mr. Nightingale's 
Diary," 173, 215, 279, 284, 294, 335; 
Nicholas Nickleby (scene from), 253, 
262; " Not so Bad as we Seem," 105, 
113, 168, 173, 215, 284, 295, 296,297, 
335; "Past Two O'clock in the 
Morning," 269; "The Elder Broth- 
er," 35, 277; "The Frozen Deep," 
106, 115, 280, 285,292, 297, 299, 306, 
336, 344, 359; "The Lighthouse," 
113, 178, 181, 280, 285, 299, 336; 
"The Merry Wives of Windsor," 
120, 278, 287; "The Rival Volun- 
teers," 333; "Tom Thumb," 279; 
"Used Up," 254, 266, 284, 296, 335; 
"William Tell," 297, 298 

"Plighted Troth," 40 

Podsnap, Mr., John Forster said to 
have been the original of, 396 

Politicians, Dickens's attitude towards, 
48, 198, 245 

Pollock, Lady, 2, 37 

Pollock, Sir Frederick, ISO 

Pollock, Sir Jonathan, 180 

Poole, John, 26, 51, 78, 104, 201-204, 
269, 273, 283 

"Poor Tom," 372 

Power, Marguerite, 188 

Power, Nelly, 188 

Pre-Raphelite Art, Dickens's opinion 
of, 327 

Prescott, W. H., 237 

Price, 'Tilda, Frank Stone's picture of, 
174 

Prison reform, Dickens'sinterestin, 139 

Proctor, Adelaide Anne, 171, 261 

Procter, B. W., 3, 148, 153, 165, 185j 
260, 394; his friendship with Dick- 
ens, 169 

Prout, Father, 153 

Publishers, Dickens's relations with 
his, 221-229, 238-241 

"Punch," 84, 88, 99, 282, 295, 296, 
316, 362, 367 

"Quarterly Review, The," 144, 145 
Quin, Dr., 70, 153, 322 
"Quite Alone," 366 

Ragged Schools, 193, 197 

Reade, Charles, 320 

"Reader, Charles Dickens as a," 357 



422 



INDEX 



Reading, Dickens gives a reading at, 7, 
52; Dickens invited to become can- 
didate for, 52 

Reading tours, Dickens's, 3S1-384 

Renton, Richard, 169, 212, 283, 382, 
390, 394, 398, 401, 406, 411 

Richmond, Copperfield dinner at, 89, 
291, 308, 375; dinner at, to Mac- 
ready, 34 

Roberts, H. Ellis, 148 

Roberts, Mr., 70 

Robertson, Peter, 132 

"Robinson Crusoe," 56 

Rochester, 68, 230 

Rockingham Castle, 252, 253, 254, 
255, 262, 266. See Chesney Wold. 

1" Rodney, Anne, The Diary of," 336 

Rogers, Samuel, 3 ; his friendship with 
Dickens, 147-150 

"Roland, A, for an Oliver," 269 

Rome, 145 

"Rookwood," 12, 15 

Ross, 384 

Ruskin, John, 87 

Russell, Lord John, his friendship with 
Dickens, 198-204 

Russell, Sir William H., 106 

Rutherford, Mrs., 122 

Sala, G. A., 298, 341, 372; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 361-367 

Salisbury Plain, 276, 281 

Sanitary improvements, Dickens's ad- 
vocacy of, 318 

Scotch friends of Dickens, 132-133 

Scotland, Dickens's visits to, 120, 129, 
132 

Seven Poor Travellers, The, 170, 338 

Seymour, Robert, 42 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 2, 198, 217; hi3 
friendship with Dickens, 195-197 

Shakespeare Society, the, 3, 30, 108, 
165, 169, 172 

Sherborne, 36 

Siddons, Mrs. Henry, 122 

"Sister Rose," 336 

Sketches by Boz, 8, 11,42, 222; Cruik- 
shank's illustrations for, 20; Fon- 
blanque's appreciation of, 135 

Skimpole, Harold, and Leigh Hunt, 
156, 315 

Smike, Lord Jeffrey's affection for, 122 

Smith, Albert, dramatises The Battle 
of Life, 301, 833; dramatises The 
Cricket, on the Hearth, 302, 383; his 
friendship with Dickens, 382 



Smith," Arthur^ 106; his friendship 
with Dickens, 381 

Smith, Sydney, his friendship with 
Dickens, 137 

Soane, Sir, John, 141 

Social Reform, Dickens's work for, 
193, 195, 196, 197, 199, 318 

St. Knighton. See "Nymph of the 
Waterfall, The." 

Stage, the, Dickens's enthusiasm for, 
7; and see Theatricals. 

Stanfield, Clarkson, R.A., 2, 68, 71, 103, 
107, 153, 163, 165, 217, 280, 282, 
294; his friendship with Dickens, 
110-117 

Stanley, Dean, 316 

Staplehurst railway accident, the, 8 

Stirling, Edward, 383 

Stone, Frank, A.R.A., 3, 165, 283; 
his friendship with Dickens,172-179; 
his frontispiece to MartinChuzzlewit, 
1 74 ; his illustrations for The Haunted 
Man, 173; his paintings of Madeline 
Bray, Kate Nickleby, and 'Tilda 
Price, 174; his portrait of Sydney 
Smith Haldimand Dickens, 172 

Stone, Marcus, R.A., ix; his drawing 
of Poor Jo, 175; his friendship with 
Dickens, 172-179; his frontispiece for 
A Tale of Two Cities, 178; his illus- 
trations for Child's History of 
England, 178; his illustrations for 
American Notes, 178; his illustra- 
tions for Great Expectations, 178; 
his illustrations for Little Dorrit, 
178; his illustrations for Pictures 
from Italy, 178; his picture of Gad's 
Hill House, 177; his portrait of 
Kate Dickens, 177; Presentation 
Copy of A Child's History of Eng- 
land to, 178 

Stonehenge, 281 

Storrow, Mrs., 226 

"Strand Magazine, The," 22, 26 

"Strange Story, A," 218 

Stratford-on-Avon, 68 

Stuart, Lord Dudley, 317 

Sue, Eugene, 323 

"Sun, The," 355, 356 

Sunday Under Three Heads, 42 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 305 

Swiss chalet, the, at Gadshill, 391 

Switzerland. See Collins, William Wil- 
kie; also de Cerjat, M.; also Haldi- 
mand, William; also Watson, Hon. 
R. and Mrs. 



INDEX 



423 



Tagart, Rev. Edward, his friendship 
with Dickens, 307 

Tale of Two Cities, A, 4A, 2S9; Car- 
lyle's appreciation of, 208; Carlyle's 
influence on, 207; dedicated to Lord 
John Russell, 203; Marcus Stone's 
illustrations for, 178 

Talfourd, Thomas Noon, vii, 3, 14, 31, 
165; his friendship with Dickens, 
48-53; said to have been original of 
Tommy Traddles, 51 ; The Pickwick 
Papers dedicated to, 48 

"Tatler, The," 158 

Tavistock House, Dickens becomes 
tenant of, 173; Frank Stone a tenant 
of, 173; parties and theatricals at. 
See under Theatricals, Amateur. 

Taylor, Bayard, 231, 237 

Taylor, Theodore, 302 

Taylor, Tom, 316 

Teetotallers, Dickens's attitude to- 
wards, 23, 24, 25 

Tennent, Sir James Emerson, his 
friendship with Dickens, 306 

Tenniel, Sir John, his friendship with 
Dickens, 296 

Tennyson, Lord, ix; his friendship 
with Dickens, 219-220 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 3, 18, 
43, 106, 165, 260, 30S; his friend- 
ship with Dickens, 80-96; his quarrel 
with Dickens, 90-96, 179,349; his re- 
conciliation with Dickens, 95-96, 179 

Theatrical Fund, General, 86, 280 

Theatricals, Amateur: at Miss Kelly's 
theatre, 26, 35, 78, 104, 173, 189, 
269, 271, 273, 277, 287, 294, 298; at 
Rochester, 333; at Rockingham 
Castle, 253, 262, 266; at Tavistock 
House, 178, 269, 277, 279, 285, 292, 
299,306,335,344; in aid of Bourne- 
mouth Sanatorium, 336; in aid of 
Douglas Jerrold's family, 297, 299, 
381; in aid of Fund for Curatorship 
of Shakespeare's house, 105, 120,167, 
269, 274, 278, 284, 294, 295, 299; 
in aid of Guild of Literature and 
Art, 106, 168, 173, 263, 269, 274, 278, 
2S4, 291, 294, 296, 298, 335, 336 344; 
in aid of Leigh Hunt and John Poole, 
26, 51, 104, 156, 173, 201, 209, 273, 
278, 284. 294; in Canada, 104, 
268; Mrs. Gamp's account of the 
tour of 1847, 26, 104, 274 

Theatricals, Children's, at Tavistock 
House, 108, 277, 279, 297, 335, 383 



Thomas, Owen R M 6 

Thomas, W. Moy, 341, 374 

Thomson, David Croal, 42 

Thornbury, Walter, 374 

Thumb, Tom, 154 

"Thumb, Tom," 279 

Ticknor and Fields, 238 

"Tillotson, Mrs., The Second," 353 

"Times, The," 28, 329 

Tobin, Daniel, 6 

Tom Tiddler's Ground, 318, 338, 372 

Toole, John L., 278 

Topham, Francis W., 294 

"Tower of London, The," 15 

"Town Talk," 90 

Townshend, Chauncey Hare, Dickens 
edits "Literary Remains" of, 311 
Great Expectations dedicated to, 31 1 
his friendship with Dickens, 3 10-312 
MS. of Great Expectations presented 
to, 311; said to have been original 
of Cousin Feenix, 311; said to have 
been original of Mr. Twemlow, 311 

Tracey, Lieut., 139 

Traddles, Tommy, T. N. Talfourd said 
to have been original of, 51 

Trollope, Anthony, 88 

Tulrumble, Mr., The Public Life of, 
Cruikshank's illustrations for, 25 

Turner, J. M. W., Ill, 328 

"Turpin, Bold, vunce on Hounslow 
Heath," 15 

Twemlow, Mr., the reputed original of, 
311 

Twickenham, 10, 14, 66, 89, 107 

Twiss, Horace, 71, 322 

Union Club, the, 187 

Unitarian Creed, Dickens's temporary 

sympathy with 248, 308 
"Used Up," 254, 266, 284, 296, 335 

Valetta, 306 

Varden, Dolly, W. P. Frith 's paintings 
of, 325 

Venus, Mr., "discovered" by Marcus 
Stone, 178 

Victoria, Queen, Dickens offers to 
reveal plot of Edwin Drood to, 319; 
Dickens's audience with, 319; pur- 
chases Thackeray's Presentation 
Copy of A Christmas Carol, 89 

Village Coquettes, The, 223, 362; dedi- 
cated to J. P. Harley, 302; J. P. 
Harley appears in, 302; John 
Hullah's music for, 303 



424 



INDEX 



"Volunteers, The Rival," 333 

Wales, Prince of, 247 

Ward, E. M., R.A., his friendship with 

Dickens, 324; his portrait of 

Dickens, 324 
Washington, 227 
Watson, Hon. R. and Mrs., 262; their 

friendship with Dickens, 252-256 
Webster, Benjamin, 98; his friendship 

with Dickens, 301, 302 
Weller, Sam, the subject of Phiz's first 

Pickwick illustration, 43; William 

Jerdan's appreciation of, 140 
Wellington House Academy, 6 
White, Rev. James, 153, 281; his 

friendship with Dickens, 304, 305 
"Wild Sports in the City," 359 
Wilkie, Sir David, R.A., his friendship 

with Dickens, 130, 131 
Wilkins, W. Glyde, 226 
"William Tell," 297, 298 
Wills, Mrs. W. H., 344 



Wills, W. H., 83, 369, 370 ; his friendship 

with Dickens, 342-346 
Wilson, John, his friendship with 

Dickens, 132 
Wilson, Sir John, 153 
Winter, G., 15 
Winterslow, 281 
" Woma,n in White, The," 337 
Woolwich Academy, 371 
Wreck of the Golden Mary, The, 305, 

338, 351 



Yarmouth, 276, 281 

Yates, Edmund, 49, 80, 90, 91, 92, 93, 
94, 313, 398, 399, 402; Dickens's 
regard for his father and mother, 
347, 348; his friendship with 
Dickens, 347-349. See also Chapter 
on W. M. Thackeray. 

Yorkshire, Dickens's visit to, with 
Phiz, 44 

Young, Robert, 42, 46 



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